and it lives in my bones
by hotpielookedlikehotpie
Summary: AU, part 2 of 3. sequel to "and it runs through my veins."
1. part i

Author: hotpielookedlikehotpie  
Fandom: The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins  
Story Title: and it lives my bones  
Series Title: and it runs through my veins  
Characters: Katniss Everdeen, Peeta Mellark, Annie Cresta, Finnick Odair, Johanna Mason, Wiress, Beetee, Coriolanus Snow, Primrose Everdeen, Effie Trinket, Haymitch Abernathy, Cinna, Mrs. Everdeen, Gale Hawthorne, Madge Undersee, Caesar Flickerman  
Rating: M  
Warnings: language; violence; mental illness; suicidal thoughts; religion; sexual themes; sexual situations; character death; physical/emotional abuse; forced sexual slaved/references to prostitution, etc  
Notes: the warnings/ratings are amped up from the first part, as things progress it all gets more intense, liv it up  
Disclaimer: All settings and proprietary language are owned by the author of the work from which this is derived.

* * *

**part i.**_ in which she is reintroduced; on sanity and scars and of course those canaries; a woman clock's tock and a dripping, snarling woman that is a mirror in murky water of a girl; the three of color amongst the bleach and their jabber of too much; him with the silk and fire, and fire, and fire; no-help-at-all from a drunk and it's no real surprise; and then the camera's rolling and we're live in five_

* * *

"Sometimes I'm terrified of my heart; of its constant hunger for whatever it is it wants. The way it stops and starts." – Edgar Allan Poe

* * *

The smell of sterility flowed through her to a point of suffocation and the blinding white all around her was too much to the point where she was tempted to beg to be put back into the ridiculous colors and designs of the Capitol.

(_Or to go home._ To go to the sooty place that was permanently overcasted with a grey, where nothing could ever be this bleached out white, to a house that barely was enough room really for anyone let alone three bodies, to the hidden beauty of a meadow just beyond the grime and untouched by the coal, to a little sister's laughs and smiles.

_Let it go_.)

(She knew what she really meant though. _Let_ her _go. Be happy that you have her to miss, and that she isn't here, that it's you. Let her go. Let her go_.)

She hated how much she thought of home and of being home during her time stuck in the Hospital. They gave her the okay to leave, sure, but Peeta wasn't fully recovered yet, and she wasn't about to go and venture into the Village alone. She was going to wait for Peeta, and he wasn't awake.

Or maybe he was. Now when she passed his room the window was curtained and the door was locked, making her underlying dizziness sometimes become full blown nausea until she found her way back to the room she was staying at to lay in bed.

It didn't do much for her nerves. More than once Katniss found herself bickering with Haymitch, who she knew she should be happy about being there with her because he was finally acting like some sort of mentor, but he was so damn irritating. And more than once did Haymitch threaten to inject Katniss with enough morphling that she'd be knocked out until next donation.

She just needed to know. Know if he was conscious, if he was okay, if he was in pain, if he was even _alive. _(Of course he was still alive. She knew he was. She knew because she knew that she'd know, somehow, if he wasn't. He was alive. She had to repeat it in her head. _He is alive. Alive. He's not dead. He can't be. I won't allow it._)

She hadn't seen him since the time she went into his room and the President talked with her afterwards. Nurses came into her room every now and then, just to make sure she was okay, but it was always avoxes. Avoxes with no tongues, who couldn't speak. Avoxes who she couldn't question about how Peeta was doing. She got out of the bed and went to the door.

"Where are you going, sweetheart?" Haymitch's voice sounded bored and on edge. He disappeared every now and then when he was staying in the Hospital with Katniss waiting, only to come back liquored up and a newly filled hidden flask. He was running low, and his patience was as well.

"For a walk," Katniss answered absentmindedly. She didn't want to deal with Haymitch right now.

"You're not going to get into his room, you know."

"I'm going for a _walk_, Haymitch." She shut the door loudly and made her way down the long hallway. There weren't many people milling about the hallways, most likely either in the different rooms, at the main desk, or the doctor's lounge. Katniss found the place by accident, much to all the doctor's dismay. When she came upon it they all fell silent and looked at her with a frown. One came straight towards her and gripped her arm and forced her down the hall back to her room. "Curiosity is a most unpleasant trait, don't you think?" he murmured into her ear before she was pushed a bit forcefully into her room and the door was shut behind her.

Alright, fine. She got it. They didn't like it when people looked around.

Or more, when the Reaped did. They couldn't be curious; that never fit into whatever role President Snow made for them. Dance and twirl, seduce and smile, laugh and cry, drink and roar, but never, never, never inquire.

Katniss' was simple of course. A nice little role for her to fit snug into, one of a girl in love, who snuck into his room to kiss him and hold his hand, who whispered to him of course with words that had to be sweet nothings, to, to–

(She wondered, fleetingly, if Snow realized the lack of knowledge and, to be honest, ability Katniss had in this area that she now would have to live in. He'd be absolutely delighted to know how marvelously she was destined to fail.)

Katniss was in the halls the next day, a quick skip in her step past the doctor's lounge, but she wanted to know who else was still recovering.

She walked down the hallway, the stark and straight hallway that seemed to twist in her mind, and ended up in the threshold of Annie's room. She didn't spend much time with Annie, but then again she didn't spend a lot of time with people before the first donation besides Rue and Peeta.

Her heart stuttered over those two names in her thoughts, and she wondered which hurt more.  
(_The one I failed, and the one that I'm destined and set up to fail._)

She spent time with Finnick though, and thought she could really, truly, call him a good friend of hers already. One of the only she had so far in this new damned world. And his love for Annie, well, it made her love Annie too. In a way, at least. And the way that the doctors apparently were just waving her off as some mental disease, well, she felt she needed to investigate, so see how mad this mad Annie Cresta was.  
So she stood there silently and looked at the small girl who seemed even smaller laying in the hospital bed, whose hair was even curlier, who was staring, staring, at nothing but there was a smile (_not completely lost, look, a smile, not completely lost and gone like mother_) and just took her in for a bit. The girl was beautiful.

And mad, to the doctors at least.

The doctors that were from the Capitol, that were controlled by Snow. Snow, that already had threatened Katniss before she fully woke up from donating a piece of herself to one of his loving citizens.

She would make her own decision about Annie, she decided, and would throw the Doctor's words for her to the window.

"Hey Annie," Her voice rang out as she took a couple of steps forward and the girl in the bed looked over at her. The smile on her face twitched bigger and her eyes searched Katniss' face, seeming to be slightly more in the moment than they were when she was sitting and staring just before. Katniss took more steps towards Annie, wondered if the girl remembered her. "It's Katniss. How are you?"

"As fit as a button," she replied and her voice was light and airy, high and beautiful.

Katniss didn't comment on the fact that that wasn't how the saying, any saying, went, but instead sat down next to her. "Good."

Annie was distracted, and her eyes roamed the hair of the girl sitting next to her. "Your hair is beautiful, the braid..." Her fingers landed at the bottom and then she looked back up to the grey eyed girl. "Can you turn around? I'd like to see the braid."

Katniss fought to keep a frown of confusion off of her face and just nodded, turning around and feeling the girl's fingers dance down as if wanting to touch each hair on her head. She repeated, "your hair is beautiful, Katniss. And your braid."

Katniss turned back around. "Would you like me to braid your hair?"

A smile seemed to take over Annie's face, a smile so joyous that she didn't know that anyone but Prim would ever be able to have one light up their face like that. "Oh, would you please?" Annie sat up straight in the bed, and turned her back to Katniss as she started to run her fingers through the girl's hair. She looked at it, all the curls and all of the knots and she wondered how she was going to be able to braid it, truly. "There's a hairbrush on my end table," Annie answered her unasked question, and Katniss picked it up wondering how mad a girl so observant could be.

It was weird. She only interacted with Annie a few times, but this felt like the first true meeting of her. And it was after they were Reaped, after they donated, after she was deemed "mad." And already, yeah, Katniss could pinpoint things of her that seemed a bit different, things she said or did that didn't make sense, but Annie also already had moments of such clear understanding and able to give such joy. The word "mad" seemed wrong, too finite. Annie sang low a song about a fisherman stealing a mermaid under her breath as Katniss began to brush her hair, and Katniss found herself humming along soon enough, morphing it into one of the songs from her own District about a coal miner in love with a canary's song.

Brushing through her hair, massaging her fingers on her scalp, Annie grew silent and Katniss continued to hum. Without realizing it, something caught her eye on the side of Annie's head when she parted away hair and looked again. There was a scar.

Katniss tried to push away her anger as she quickly moved Annie's dark hair back over the scar. She never wanted to see it again, and was quite sure it was intended to never be seen. Mad, the doctors said. No, Annie wasn't_ mad_. Annie was _damaged_, and it was _their_ fault.

Fuck, they all were damaged. And well on their way to more.

She kept brushing her hair, not braiding yet, and tried to stay away from the scar and tried to make her mind stop screaming. She thought back to the song of the canary that stole the miner's heart, and hummed it again. It was always one of her favorites, would be if only because it was a song that brought such warm and happy feelings to her mind about her mother and her father, of before everything. A miner working all day underground with no light, no other people around even. It was dark and his only friend were the rocks around him. And then the yellow canary came around and twittered around him. _The day is done, and now you can live again_, it seemed to sing out, and he followed it as it danced around him and brought him outside. But it was still sunny when he left with that canary song in his head, even though evening should have been coming. And the canary left the mines with him, and carried him into a meadow and before he knew it, he was a bird, singing a song of home and sunshine and flying through the sky side by side of that canary.

_"Your mother is my canary, Katniss," her father would whisper to her and she'd giggle as she watched her mother blush and give him a playful slap, hearing him._

_"I believe the story is mixed up. Your canary song is the one that lead me to the sunlight." _And then he'd sing the song to her, and she'd flit around him, as if the canary, and they'd flit around each other, as if one another's canaries, and it always ended with them both in the sun, both in the air singing, both together.

_And that's how it ended, really, didn't it? _A new thought of it all overtook Katniss and she tried to concentrate on the hair in front of her. Her father was a canary that brought her mother to life, and when he died, when he was in the sunlight flying and her mother could only chase after, well, she followed him. She didn't die as well, no she wasn't dead, but she was also more dead than he was. More decayed than his body would ever become. Because his song would always live, would always play in the sunlight, and she just went back to the mines, never finding the exit without the canary's song to drag her out.

"That's a pretty song, you have a nice voice."

Katniss shook her head. She had trouble concentrating after the donation, or rather since she volunteered. She wondered if it was just a side effect of the Capitol. She always felt like she was worrying or in mourning. "I'm only humming."

Even with her back to her, Katniss could feel the smile that Annie was wearing. "I bet your singing is beautiful. I bet if you stood on a beach and sang all the seashells would echo your notes."

A voice that silenced birds came to her mind, but she pushed it back down. "I don't do that much singing anymore." She couldn't lead anyone out of the mine, her song stuck in her throat.

"Oh, could you sing for me please Katniss? It'd be nice."

_Not that song_, she decided right away of the one she'd been humming while with Annie. After all of her new thoughts to it, she wondered if she could sing that song ever again.

Her mind went quickly to a song about a meadow, but she erased that thought just as quickly as it entered as well. That was the last song she sang with her father, the song she sang just days ago to Rue who didn't wake up. She wondered if those notes were some kind of culling song; she wondered if it'd catch up and snatch her too.

She didn't sing anymore, no, not since that day years ago, but she still remembered every song, with every word and note. She had to. She drew her strength from them, built herself up in the marrow of the lyrics.

Most of the songs her father fancied were rebellious and banned from her by her mother (meaning she knew them all, every note). Some were dark while others were just rousing, but the thought of what the Capitol would think of the words made her try and think through other songs she knew. She thought of songs from home, from District Twelve, school songs and valley songs, songs about the far off mountains and secret people that lived there, and songs that miners sang while they came up from under the earth to finally see the sky only to have the sun setting on them. She thought of their funeral songs, of the songs that were sung at her fathers memorial, she pushed _those ones_ away. She brushed the girls hair as she hummed louder, and then finally did sing, a song from grade school that she was sure she had forgotten but somehow the pleas of this girl brought it back to her. She plaited Annie's hair and without even meaning to brought the hair into two braids. She didn't even realize what she was doing, she meant to give her one braid that went off to the side like the one she wore. But instead Katniss gave her braids that she was used to doing in another person's hair.

Blonde hair flashed before her eyes and she hid her grimace when Annie found her reflection in the mirror and gushed over it..

(_Let her go. Let her go. Let her go. _The words took root in her bloodstream, came throbbing in her mind with every heartbeat. _Let her go. Let her go._)

She left Annie's room quickly after that, making up a feeble excuse that she was sure Annie saw through (but the girl just smiled, smiled, smiled), feeling more mad than deemed-mad Annie had been at any point during her visit.

* * *

Another day, and she found herself in another room. It was a busy room, and big. Katniss found herself in it from curiosity, not knowing who was in it. When she looked she saw three beds, two with curtains around them and one with the woman sitting up looking at her hands.

When Katniss made her way into the room, Johanna Mason's eyes shot up at her and her eyebrow quirked in question.

"What are you doing in here, brainless?"

Katniss bristled at the nickname she gave her, but didn't regard it. "I was in the neighborhood," she told her. She didn't add that she felt like she was going mad from being cooped up in the hospital, for deciding herself to be cooped up.

"So you decided to visit me because I had no visitors and guilt led your feet in here?" Her voice was harsh and Katniss scowled. She didn't like this woman, really, she was too much salt and she felt like slapping her more often that not.

Which was a bit of an entertaining notion, for the feelings were the same the other way around.

"I didn't know who was in here," she told the woman in the bed (_woman, just a few years older than me, but she's a woman, and I'm just a girl_) and looked around. "Besides, you seem to not be in here alone, guilt didn't drive me here."

Johanna flicked her hand. "The room that I was supposed to be in got taken over by some hot shot or the other that had to die. I don't know, don't care. So now I'm with these two," she jutted her head to the two screened beds. "Nuts and Volts."

Katniss didn't understand why that was so, why Johanna needed to go into a shared room. There were empty rooms she passed, empty rooms that used to room now dead people._ Dead people that were dead because of me,_ she added in her head._ I made sure of that._ She looked back at Katniss and gave her a heavy smile. "Why didn't you get put into a room with others from Seven?"

"I'm not particularly their most favorite person – not that I know why." Katniss tried to hold back a snort of laughter, but Johanna had let hers through. She quieted after a bit, and her voice grew quiet too. "This years Reaped from Seven didn't make it."

Katniss couldn't even place their faces and that made her feel even guiltier. "I'm sorry."

Johanna shook her head, trying to rid herself of the quiet, the somber. "It's not your fault." _Yes it is,_ Katniss bit back. She wondered if those from Seven would still be alive if it wasn't for her. She wondered how different all the Reaped would be off if she never stepped forward when asked for volunteers. A butterfly's flutter can cause a hurricane, so surely everything to follow suit of Katniss' volunteering was to be a disaster. "I didn't even know them, but they were home. They still smelled like Pine when they first stepped onto the train." She paused, and looked away. "The smell's gone by the time we got to the Capitol."

Katniss nodded, and an uneasy silence passed between the two. What was there even to say? Katniss was looking for a way to leave without being rude (why did she even care about being rude? Especially with this woman? She was about to decide that she didn't care about that either) when Johanna spoke again.

"If you're wondering, you're my first visitor."

"I wasn't wondering," Katniss tried to dismiss, but couldn't help how she actually felt about that realization. _Where were the other ones from her district? Weren't her and Finnick friends, why hadn't he visited?_

"Don't worry, I don't care," Johanna kept going as if Katniss didn't answer. "I wasn't expecting anyone to."

Katniss felt incredibly uncomfortable. "Well...surprise," she deadpanned, and Johanna barked a laugh and she heard a muttered 'please' amongst other unintelligible words.

"Did you have any visitors, Miss Everdeen?" Johanna asked as Katniss decided to bite the bullet and take a seat nearby her bed.

Being called 'Miss Everdeen' set her blood to run thin and cold, and Katniss tried to suppress a shudder. Thinking of her visitor made her want to crawl into a closet with all the lights off and lay there for days, but she didn't want to show anything of what she was feeling to Johanna. She had a feeling that Johanna was a bit too rough for any sort of sympathy, but wondered if threats from the President would soften her up. "President Snow visited me," she told her, trying to sound non-chalant. She didn't bring up Finnick, and definitely didn't bring up going to Annie. She didn't know _how_ close Johanna was to them, or if she expected visits, and didn't know how she'd react to Katniss seeing them.

Johanna's eyes lit up, interested with this detail. Inside she screamed and almost shuddered, but she didn't let it out. She _wouldn't_ let it out. "So you're one of the lucky ones," Johanna mused with a smile that was anything but warm and inviting. "All of your loved ones got threatened?" Katniss merely nodded, she couldn't get into this with her, with this person she was certain hated her. "Tell me, how do you enjoy being a victor?"

"Victor?" Katniss asked, confused.

The smile grew bigger. Colder. "Yes. Victor. A nice name given to us poor district folk that were Reaped and survived and now get to live with the comforts of the Capitol. Us _victors_."

Katniss was quiet for a bit. She certainly didn't _feel _like a victor. Nothing about her situation felt victorious. She felt in a large black hole that threatened to consume it all, and all she could do was watch as she slowly, inch by inch, got taken in only to realize she was the black hole herself. "I, uh, well I haven't left the Hospital yet. So uh."

"Why not? Something wrong with you, brainless?"

She could feel the heat rising in her cheeks. "No, no. Just..." She didn't want to talk about this, especially with _her_. She didn't want to talk about anything with Johanna. Johanna set her on edge, and she knew that she'd not be given any amount of sympathy or any easy route at all with her. She hated it. "Peeta's still here, and I didn't want to go back to the village alone."

Johanna guffawed, and Katniss felt more red. She tried to think to when she became so weak, having to wait for someone to go somewhere._Dammit. Dammit dammit dammit._ "Right, I forgot. You and loverboy. You sometimes come up on that TV," Johanna jerked her head to a television set. It was unplugged, the remote lying next to it broken. "Well, _used_ to come up on it. How is loverboy, by the way?"

Brainless, loverboy. Katniss was sick of her stupid nicknames, and could feel her irritation in her voice. "Not awake yet. Hence me still being here."

Johanna seemed amused by Katniss' growing irritation over her and was about to pursue pushing her past her limit, just to see her explode, just because she was so damn bored, but was interrupted by someone behind one of the screened bed.

"Tick-tock," a voice sang out. "Tick-tock."

Katniss' anger went away immediately and felt a panic rise. "Tick-tock," rang out again, and then there was rustling of one of the screens moving. Johanna flopped herself on the bed with an annoyed sigh, and Katniss looked over. A man with beady eyes and glasses stood up, moving away the screens around one of the beds. It was, _who was he, who was he_, and then Katniss remembered meeting him briefly. His name was Beetee.

He fixed his glasses quickly, looking over at Katniss and Johanna. "Hello there, Katniss."

Katniss replied with a "hello" back, but it was drowned out by the "tick-tock, tick-tock" coming from the other screened bed. Beetee went to the other screen and pulled it back, revealing the woman named Wiress, her black hair a cloud of knots surrounding her. Her eyes were large and unseeing and she repeated the two syllables as Beetee tried to calm her down.

"Do you see what I'm dealing with. Fuck," Johanna muttered, moving over to where her IV was dripping morphling and messed with the settings. "I'll see you later, Brainless," she said, and Katniss was going to question what she meant but then Johanna was knocked out by the dosage of morphling.

"Tick-tock, tick-tock," Wiress kept saying, despite Beetee trying to quiet her down.  
Katniss wondered if this woman, this Wiress, was sent to make audible the ticking of her life._ Tick-tock,_ it ran through her head. _Tick-tock._ She was living on borrowed time. There would always be dues.

"Wiress, Wiress," Beetee tried calling out. Katniss stood up, she needed to leave.

"Drip-drop," Wiress started then, alternating between the two. _Drip-drop_, all the blood that was sucked out of the dead because of her. Katniss inched towards the door.

"I have to uh," She took another step to the door. "I have to go now."

Beetee didn't look surprised or confused. Wiress' eyes were still wide and she was still blubbering. "That's fine Katniss. We'll see you soon," Beetee answered.

Katniss left the room, but it was no use. _Tick-tock, drip-drop, _it was stuck in her head.

She tried to run back to her room, hoping that maybe Haymitch would be there to piss her off and take her mind out of those sounds, those debts, that panic.

* * *

Haymitch wasn't in the room, but it wasn't empty.

"Katniss! We have been waiting for you!"

They stuck out amongst the Hospital almost painfully, and Katniss had to blink her eyes a bit to adjust to their sight. She was yearning for something besides all of the sterile white of the hospital, but this. This. Their colorful hair, eyes, tattoos, skin, it was too much against the sterile and bleach, and Katniss had to just stare at the trio in front of her and blink to try and stop a headache from crashing into her.

Her prep team was there, full of expectant smiles. No wonder the drunkard left her out to dry.

"Uh. Hi guys. Nice to see you," She said uncomfortably. They smiled and dragged her into the room.

They started all talking at once, and soon she found herself being led out of her hospital room and down the corridor to the prep room she had been in only once before for her interview.

"We're so happy when you didn't end up in the Catalogue, Katniss! Although I wouldn't mind those knobby knees of yours, word on the street is they are the next big trend but you didn't hear it from me!" Octavia cooed as they undressed her. She wondered if she should say thank you to it, but decided on a smiling silence. It was either that or start vomiting up all of the shitty hospital food she'd been living on, all of the vitamins she was still taking (_and will be taking for as long as you're around! We need you always healthy and fit, and we have much work to be done to get that District unhealthiness out of you_).

An important thing that she started to realize in her week leading up to the donation, and in the presence of these three especially. You could talk to the Capitol citizens, but they won't listen. They see a blazing smile, hear a word or two that they were expecting, and they were _happy_and _gushing_ and _that's really great but let me tell you about myself more and please, please, let me know every detail of yourself._ They were intrusive and full of hot air, and Katniss, as long as she concentrated, found herself able to fill them up and have them take over the conversation, only having to give a smile or a nod. The smile was always important. Katniss' cheeks hurt, never having been one for a smile.

Living in soon-to-be-luxury was a lot more demanding than she realized, and in all the ways that she was not prepared for.

They tsked at her naked body. "Oh Katniss, honestly," Venia muttered as they laid her on the bed and started the process of waxing. She had to go through one before the interviews so that she looked better than her absolute best, but they told her then that it'd be just a quick one. "We're not going to waste good product and time on just a dead body you know? So survive and we can _really_ make you beautiful!"

Everything they said disgusted Katniss (almost wanted her dead just for her a _trend_. Honestly?), and she felt on the verge of ripping her hair out just to see how they'd react as well as wishing for her bow so they'd just shut up. But they were so...so foolish. They didn't _know_ better, and she knew they had no ill-will towards her (unlike a certain President). This was the life they knew, as sick as it was. And they really were genuinely happy to see Katniss still alive, whether or not that meant they missed out on her soon-to-be trendy knobby knees or not.

"Now that you got through your first Reaping, we get to do a more permanent hair removal, which honestly, thank goodness. Do they breed yetis in District Twelve? You're all so hairy!"

Katniss smiled. "It's a lot more barbaric out there." _We don't take people's knees for fashion statements, for one._

"Oh, of course!" Octavia cooed. "You poor thing you, growing up in that." She was attacking Katniss' nails with a fury, muttering under her breath the likes of _really, Katniss, you_ really_ had to bite your nails and give me only the chance at getting a miracle in order to fix you?_.

"Don't worry though, sweetie, because you don't have to be in savage living anymore. You'll be living in the Village now, a part of the Capitol for all of the surviving Reaped."

"Oh!" Octavia squealed after Katniss was in a vat. This was taking so long, so so long, them saying they were taking her down to what they call beauty base zero. "That boyfriend of yours! How is he?"

The word "boyfriend" could have made her cringe, but she remembered that these are just simple-minded people who didn't know better, and well, she needed to get started on working on this farce, she decided. She held back a sad frown, and all three of them instantly drew in close to her with puppy eyes. "I don't know," She answered honestly, and she almost started panicking at how much she didn't have to try to make her voice break at the phrase. She really _didn't_ know how Peeta was, and that freaked her out. _Tick-tock, tick-tock._ "I saw him once, I visited him when he was still asleep but after that–"

They started to gush, apparently unable to deal with sad uncertainties. "Oh, I'm sure they just started to gussy him up for you!" Venia cried out.

Flavius nodded. "Of course! I mean, I can't imagine how dreadful he must've looked laying there. Nothing a good shampoo and condition to the hair could fix him right up and make you fall in love with him all over again."

Their squeals in agreement hid the wrinkle in Katniss' nose at that stupid, stupid word they insisted on using.

"I cannot wait to see you guys finally moving into the village. Ah, just, just young love. It's so sweet that something so pure can still come from the Districts!" Octavia gushed.

* * *

By the time Cinna came into the room and all three of them left – a lot of screaming, _Katniss make sure you say your thanks to us on camera we deserve it for getting rid of the yeti on you!_ – Katniss had a horrid headache. She took comfort in Cinna's presence like she did before, and he gave her a true smile.

No, a smirk. "How has your day been?" He found this all _hilarious_.

She'd be furious, but it was Cinna, and fuck, he out of anyone knew how it felt to be in the presence of those three rabid chipmunks. "They wanted to, to implant something in my chest to give me, give me _bigger breasts_!" She didn't know why, out of everything they suggested and said this is what she told him, but it was a hell of a day and she wasn't about to question herself about it.

"If you don't want any of that done, I'll make sure it's not. After all, I _am_ the designer. And now, _you're_ official designer. So I'll have the last say in any body alterations. Anything you want? Skin coloration? Tattoo? Thigh reconstruction? Cheek augmentation?"

She didn't know what he meant by the different procedures he listed, but she knew her answer. "No." She wasn't going to let them change her body, just like how she wasn't letting them take away all of the old scars she had from hunting.

(_Oh,_ Octavia cooed, _but they're so ugly, and degrading, and really you deserve to be flawless! I really think your scars are going to detract from your look, I mean, you could be almost really attractive without them, really!_)

(When Katniss suggested to Octavia that she got the scars from a lifetime of using a bow and arrow to hunt, the woman went back to waxing – a particularly painful spot, that which didn't go over Katniss' head.)

"Very well. Then you have nothing to worry about." Cinna walked around her, sitting on the table in her robe. "I am your designer now, meaning that everything you wear I will be making. We'll be meeting in the next couple of days to figure out your style stance–"

"Style stance?" The Capitol was getting more and more confusing.

"Style stance. Your clothes will say a lot about you, Katniss. A comfortable yet stylish girl? A femme fetale? A heartbreaker?"

"Snow wants me as smitten girl in love."

"And what do you want?"

Katniss looked around, and Cinna understood and nodded. _No cameras. No bugs_. Not in the prep rooms. What talk would happen between the Reaped and their prep team that would be worth listening to? "I want to be me."

"And who are you, Katniss Everdeen?"

She paused, silent. Who was she? Everything she was, well... she couldn't see it translating it to here. She was Prim's big sister. She was one of the illegal hunters of District Twelve. She was a girl from the Seam. "I," she started, confused. _Who the hell am I?_ "I'm just...me. I'm just, just Katniss Everdeen."

Cinna smiled, sympathetically. "We'll figure it out." He flourished a black garment bag that he had in his hand suddenly, and gave another smile. "Tonight however...you are the girl on fire."

Katniss looked at him, confused. "The girl on what?"

"Fire." He seemed rather amused. "You haven't been watching the gossip columns talk of the Reaped?"

"No," Katniss answered firmly. "I don't give a damn about that."

"You should. They're talking about _you_."

_Oh yeah._ But still... "I never cared what anyone thought about me."

"You have to start caring," Cinna told her, becoming more serious. "At the end of the day, your life is in the hands of these people. However they feel about you effects you, and anyone you have befriended here."

Katniss blinked and swallowed hard. _Like Rue._ She nodded. "Alright. I'll pay more attention." She took a deep breath. "So I'm the what?"

"The girl on fire."

She paused. "The girl on fire," she repeated it, trying to see how it tasted. "Are you going to set me on fire?"

Cinna laughed. "No. Not yet at least, but don't rule it out. It came about from some columnist high in the business naming you that for your temper and how you, well how did they word it..." Cinna trailed off, thinking. His eyes lit up in amusement when he thought of it. "Oh right! They called you a spark, a _girl on fire_ with how you seemed to ignite Mister Peeta Mellark."

"Oh honestly!" Katniss threw her face in her hands and knew that she was the girl on fire with how hot her face is burning red.

Cinna chuckled. "Relax. The name caught like wildfire–"

"Are we done with the fire jokes?"

He held his smile, and then continued. "Everyone rather enjoys the nickname, Katniss. They love _you_."

Katniss scoffed. She wasn't used to that kind of sentiment, of the idea of strangers loving her. She hardly believed it. Cinna unzipped the garment bag. "I see that you also enjoyed the nickname," she commented dryly as she noticed the colors.

"You have to admit it's quite catchy. And the ability for the design theme is too much to pass up. I'm just glad they picked something inspirational like fire rather than something like the girl in dirt. Now that even _I_ would have trouble beautifying."

Katniss rolled her eyes and tried to look more at her girl on fire dress. She could see a part of it, the bright warm colors that it was made of but Cinna then closed the zipper. "Ah, ah. Close your eyes and lets get this on and do final touches to hair and makeup. Then you can look."

Something was gnawing at Katniss though. A few things (a lot of things), really, but she decided to go after only a couple. She bit her lip. "Cinna, what exactly am I getting dressed up for?"

He cocked his head at her. "They didn't tell you?" She shook her head no. "You have an interview today with Caesar Flickerman. They decided they couldn't wait anymore for the girl–"

"On fire, yeah I get it," she finished for him dismissively. She was hesitant about next question. "What about Peeta?"

"I'm sorry, I'm not sure. They'll let you know before the interview most likely. Portia is Peeta's designer, and we aren't to talk about our clients with one another."

"So naturally, you know everything and just aren't telling me." Katniss felt slightly betrayed by Cinna, who she counted as a friend, her only Capitol citizen friend and one of her only few in this entire place. Why wouldn't he tell her? Unless. _Unless..._

"I'm not allowed to tell you Katniss. I'm sorry. But everything will be fine, alright? Just worry about shining tonight and then after that we'll deal with details." Katniss sighed deeply and Cinna gave her an encouraging smile. "Now let's get you into this dress and engulf the audience with your flames."

He laughed as she looked for something to throw at him, wishing she wasn't naked just for the fact to be able to have a shoe or _something_ to throw and stop the stupid fire jokes. She could only imagine how much worse it'd get.

The games were just beginning.

* * *

When she looked in the mirror, she had to admit to herself that she could maybe (just maybe) get used to this whole fire thing. Her dress was silk and strapless, a deep red that flickered into softer (but warm, warm and strong) tones of deep reds and burnt oranges on the way up. From the waist down the silk tiered in ruffles that moved and danced with every step, and she felt like a flickering flame truly, as if she was in the middle of an inferno. Gold embellishments made their way from the waist up on the corset-fitted top, and so as she spun and it seemed as if flames were on her, the gold twinkled and caught the light in such ways that she didn't ever know was ever possible.

Natural make-up was applied to her, (_You want to be yourself, you want to be Katniss Everdeen. Let's give them your face, your natural beauty, and see how much it shakes up those done up porcelain dolls, hmm?_) with a slight red lipstick and mascara. Her hair was down and wavy, one small braid that took some hair on the right side of her and pinned to the back (_That braid is you, too, isn't it? It's you. You will still be Katniss Everdeen, I promise._)

Cinna knew what he was doing, and she was grateful for that. "Cinna, this is beautiful."

He smiled from behind her in the mirror. "And it's yours. Although I would not advise wearing it to another event. The Capitol frowns upon double wearing of an outfit."

She frowned as she lightly touched the material. "That seems a waste," she muttered.

His smile this time didn't have humor behind it. "It is." He turned her around and moved a piece of hair that got in front of her face away. "But the show must go on."

* * *

"Well you certainly at least _look_ the part."

Haymitch circled her like a wolf circling their prey, and she felt as if she was about to be devoured. If not by Haymitch's insults (or almost–compliments, she figured) then by the audience that she was soon going to be sitting out in front of, talking in front of, most likely being demanded a part of herself in just another way for them. She was just being thrown around from one person to the next, and the most infuriating part was that no one would give her any information. Just a couple of _get here_ and _go here_ and_ make sure to see this person,_ but when she brought a question past her lips they shushed her or told her _later, later_. Her anger was at a boiling point when Haymitch stumbled into her vision right next to another person that she recognized from seeing around every now and then but couldn't remember his name.

"Ta-da!" Haymitch pronounced as he swept his arms out in proclamation. His friend, Chaff, started guffawing. "I'm here, I'm here, no need to miss me anymore." Katniss was set in a rigid stance with her arms crossed and a scowl deep on her face. This man was useless, and was the only person that could help her at this point. Meaning she was useless. And done for. _Tick-tock, tick-tock._ If she didn't let herself be angry at him right then she knew, just knew, she'd find herself in the middle of a panic attack.

Chaff almost looked scared at the look on Katniss' face. "Alright, I'm off Haymitch. I'll see you in a couple of days." He started walking off. "See ya later, Fire." _Now they were going to just call me that? Dammit._

"So are you going to actually mentor me now that you're done with your drinking buddy?" Her anger felt like it was bristling.

Haymitch just rolled his eyes at her and she wondered if he was actually the teenage girl and she was _his_ caretaker. "Did you think that you were the only person that I know around here or something, sweetheart? Sorry if I couldn't hold your hand as your prep team waxed your unmentionables."

A blush creeped on her face but she pushed it down. They didn't need to talk about _that;_ it was bad enough while it was happening and Katniss was sure it'd just straight up kill her if she had to discuss it with Haymitch. "Haymitch, I'm getting interviewed by Caesar Flickerman within a half hour and you're supposed to be my mentor! I don't even know what to say, I don't know what they _want_ me to say. I'm not ready for this. Where is Peeta and why has his door been locked? Why did they decide to finally make me interview? I want to go back to the Hospital room."

"Slow down, slow down, dammit sweetheart." He opened up his flask and poured some liquor down his throat. "I get it, you have a lot of questions. I'm not going to answer most of them."

"But–"

"Shut up, or I'll answer none, you got that."

She just grunted and crossed her arms, knowing full well she was acting exactly how she shouldn't be in a dress that she was in.

"Stand still," Haymitch told her as he walked around her, and told her, "well you certainly at least _look_ the part."

He stood in front of her and she cocked her eyebrow. "What part?"

He shrugged. "_Your_ part. Whatever they decide. It's their game, and you get to become whatever they want you to become."

"What if I want to just be me?"

"Then you'll be dead by morning. Honestly sweetheart, you and I both know that there's nothing charming and endearing about you."

She knew that about herself, but she got angry at having Haymitch point it out. "Like _you're_ any better."

He just smiled at her. "I never claimed to be." He tried to get serious again and stared at her. "I wish I had a way to get you some etiquette or...or personality lessons before going into the lion's den."

"I thought they liked me already." _I'm still alive now, aren't I? The only reason that Snow's request for my death didn't go through was because they recognized my popularity with the crowd? Even Cinna said they liked me, no, _loved_ me._

"They like you with _him._ You're vulnerable, and actually human. And he can actually get a damn smile on your face." She smiled large for Haymitch to show that she could smile just fine on her own, dammit. He barked a laugh. "Yeah yeah yeah. It's still him. They love him loving you." He didn't reverse it, didn't say _and love you loving him_ because he seemed to know the discrepancies about it, about that word.

"So it all comes down to _him._" She asked. She noted how they weren't saying his name, and she wondered why. _Maybe..._

"It will always come down to him. Now shake out your nerves or something, sweetheart. You're onstage soon, and once you are there's no turning back. The games begin."

She felt a headache coming on from that thought. It felt like the games were already beginning. They hadn't? She can't do this, she can't...

The call for people to get to their places came around. "That's your cue, sweetheart." Haymitch told her, pausing and then awkwardly patting her shoulder for assurance. She realized suddenly, that he really didn't answer any of her questions. She tried to take deep breaths as she was ushered to the side of the stage, looking out onto the dark in front of her, knowing that there was a couch waiting for her, a smiling Caesar ready to dissect her with cutting questions, and the audience, and the cameras.

They were all waiting for her.

She tried to calm down, tried to get herself into the feel and look of her dress, of a _victor_. When she was off-stage she could question and scowl and hide in her bed all day. She had to seem as put together as Cinna made her look. She wondered fleetingly why she was even going through the steps of this all, why she didn't just go out there and tell the Capitol to shove it and fuck off, but she knew it was because it wasn't just about _her_ anymore. A loose wildfire burns all those surrounding it. She wasn't going to be everyone else's downfall, she couldn't fall to that guilt.

"We're on in five, four, three..."

The music started up and she watched as the lights came alive to a smiling Caesar and the cheering crowed. And waited.

* * *

**a/n:** this is being cross-posted on ao3. To be honest, I was just going to post it on there, but I know that there's a good amount of people on here that have me on author alert and want to read the next part so I'll post it here as well. None of my stories have been removed, but this story will be earning that m rating more than the first part, so to say. So we'll see. If worst comes to worst, my username on ao3 is the same as it is here, so you can check it out there. I was going to post again in one big chunk like I did the first part but I'm instead just going to do in parts. I don't know how many parts and I'm still working things out, but I'll try and update as much as possible. I'm working on a playlist for this part, which I'll be posting on my livejournal soon and it'll be linked on my blog and my ao3. Enjoy xx


	2. part ii

**part ii.**_ a dream to live waking and screaming but smile, smile, smile for that audience; there he is, isn't that right, and here we are, aren't we mister President?; talking is a thing to do with two mouths but there are other things that they can do, and other things that people assume_

* * *

Was the music this blaring before her first time on this stage? Was the crowd so loud, were the lights so bright? Katniss figured that they had to be, that the fact that she was standing backstage alone with just a couple of stage hands seemed to intensify all the senses to create even more nerves.

Well that, and the fact that there was an overlooming threat from the president over her head. Loud became louder, and everything always felt like too much when everything you cared for was on the line of your every decision.

Caesar's smile was bright as his music swelled and Katniss peeked quick to see that the audience was cheering, screaming, anticipating the upcoming interview. Anticipating _her_.

She wasn't ready for this, not even close, but she didn't have a choice as she heard Caesar Flickerman call out to the audience, "And now, if we could all welcome my guest, Katniss Everdeen the girl on fire!"

Katniss took a quick deep breath and stepped forward. The loud crowd became a wave crashing into her the moment she came into view and it took her a second of standing there to collect her bearings. _Smile, stand straight, make your way to Caesar_. She made it without tripping (_Haymitch will be so proud_) and greeted Caesar as best she could, albeit a bit shakily.

Things started up. She knew it was just beginning.

"How did it feel waking up?" Caesar asked.

"Like a dream." _A true nightmare._ She painted a smile towards the crowd. "I never thought I'd be able to make it back up onto this stage." _I never thought the President would threaten me._ The crowd cheered, and she let out a chuckle through her hand over her mouth as if she was trying to hold an overabundance of happiness back.

She didn't know the type of girl she was projecting to the Capitol, all she knew was that it wasn't her. She wasn't going to give them _that_. She'd fight for it, at the very least; they'd have to claw it out of her.

More unnecessary questions. Had she been able to indulge in any of the Capitol food yet (_No, I've been in the Hospital, all Hospital food and vitamins diet still__). How is she looking forward to her house in the village (__I'm not sure if I'll know what to do with myself with all the space_). Tell us about your dress (_My designer Cinna made it, he is a mastermind and he decided to run with your fire metaphors_). Your family (_What about them? I miss them terribly but know this was for the best, of course, and am happy to know that soon I will be able to send them money_).

Of course, the questions had to move on to the actual subject. The subject that Katniss herself wanted to ask about, needed to know.

"Now, Katniss. You must know of past Reapings within the Capitol, yes?"

She sighed. "I–, yes. I've known a person or two that have been Reaped, yes." _That you've all killed_, her mind added as she looked into the crowd. She wondered if there was anyone in the crowd with District 12 parts thrown into them. She wondered if they were less expensive than other ones, than the shimmery District 1 parts.

She wondered when she started viewing herself, the Reaped, as just damn parts. She wondered when her mind's gears turned hollow and tinny like the thoughts of the Capitol, and she saw things at their viewpoint.

Caesar nodded. "Yes, and District 12 hadn't been too lucky until you came around, huh? Haymitch over there got out alive, and there was another but that one passed away some years ago. He got to an old age. More power to you, am I right?" Screams of course, the crowd was on their feet for the most part at that point. "Now other Districts have had success over the years that you've been watching, right? You've seen a good chunk of survivors, some of our favorites?"

She looked at him warily. _Smile still_ she told herself as it felt as if her jaw was about to pop off. "Yes..."

"Well I'll let you in on a, a guideline, so to say, that the Capitol pays very strict attention to." The crowd quieted down to a stillness, and Katniss had to mentally tell herself to breathe (but she just held her breath, couldn't give herself that innate command because her brain was listening too, feeding on his words, and it was too much concentration to do anything, _anything_, else).

She nodded and didn't even consider trying a new smile when his look was a solemn apologetic look.

"There has never been more than one per District that makes it past their first Reaping. Have you noticed that?"

She swallowed hard, and was sure the entire audience heard it. "I noticed that, yes." Her voice was shaky and she wondered if President Snow was already disappointed, already killed _him_ off to leave Katniss alone and sell her body to sit in between whoever's legs would buy her.

Maybe she should have just taken his offer and ran off back home, pretended to be dead to these Capitol citizens, to the cameras.

The crowd was silent, silent. They paid attention to the List of the dead on their televisions of course, the Capitol citizens got the Catalogue as well and there hadn't been a certain blond but maybe it was for the increase of the unknown mystery and drama, maybe, maybe...

Caesar's smile spoke more words than anything else but Katniss tried to not get her hopes up until she had absolute confirmation. "Well then, girl on fire, I hope you realize that you've made Reaping history with your District partner. May I present to all of you, Peeta Mellark!"

* * *

She didn't exactly hear that last sentence. The crowd gave in to preemptive screaming and cheering and she involuntarily stood up from the couch she sat at and looked all around her to find where exactly he'd come out from to her.

There he was. She saw his blond hair first, so striking, and then his smile was big and loud, louder than the crowd and damn, it was directed right at _her_. A couple of steps in to walking towards him she realized that she was actually moving. She wondered what he knew, how he recovered, why he was unconscious for so long, what were they to do, what, why, why, why, how and–

He got to her and she suddenly was lifted into his arms and their faces were at the same height. His eyes darted across her face, _here, she's here in front of me, and damn this stage and this audience because _she's here, _in front of me,_ and she felt herself try to drink in his appearance as well. _He's alive, he's whole, he's safe._ Of course he wasn't safe, none of them were, but looking it was half the battle and he at least succeeded in that. She took in quiet sips, observed and questioned, always keeping a steady wall in between but he, he gulped her in and she almost felt suffocated and swallowed whole by the ways his eyes took her in. But then he took her lips and brought them to his and the world fell rather quiet. Quiet except for her, and him, and maybe there was a crowd but was there really? No, she wasn't sure, she was just positive that this person in front of her (_kissing her_) was a person she was determined to make sure survives and lives, lives, lives, if not for a debt or whatever she was adding it all up to at that point, as a fuck you to the President.

She kissed him back with trying to match his fervor (not being able to but damn, he didn't mind that she tried), and as it continued it felt well, so staged. Which of course, given their location, made sense. And it was, she knew that, realized that Peeta wasn't drinking her in but rather that the audience was stuffing themselves full with the two of them, together and at once. Their lips were pressed hard into one another, closed but she gripped his neck and he still was having her grasping with her tip-toes on the floor. They separated after a bit and the crowd still roared, asking still, for more.

Peeta kept his head close to hers and took the moment for as close to privacy as he could get (as they would ever get in the damn place). "Alright. I can accept your thank you now."

She kept her head by his ear and noted how a slight shiver seemed to run down his spine when he spoke (so naturally, she moved closer). "You accept my kisses but not my thanks right away. I see what kind of man you are."

But that was a lie. She didn't see what kind of man he was. She couldn't even see the kind of woman she was. Although, it's easier, always easier, to pick apart someone else rather than trying to teach yourself even the meaning of the word "I." But regardless of that, she still didn't see the kind of man he was, and he didn't truly see the kind of woman she was.

Then again, if they did, they'd both probably run. They had to grow their roots into each other, their branches intermingling before they could even realize all of that.

_I see what kind of man you are,_ she said to him and he just smiled at her as if it were an inside joke between the two of them, as if he could believe that she already saw him truly, as if the idea of that was something to laugh at. Maybe he would have blushed, but it seemed unfathomable in such an embrace, in front of such a crowd, and to him it almost all felt like a show.

Which, of course, _is_ something to laugh at him for, if only slightly (if only fully). It _is_ a show, of course, and some part of him believes it because he can't truly believe that she is kissing him but the other part, the foolish part to laugh at, yearned, hoped for all of this to be real and to make what he lost and what he survived worth it.

Caesar's voice finally found their ears and the both turned to look and see him taking the two of them in and smiling. Behind him, the crowd roared. He called for the audience to welcome them, and the two of them, Katniss and Peeta (_You're breathtaking, by the way_ darted into her ear) made their way to sit on the couch.

Peeta held her by the waist. She sat as close as possible to him without being in his lap. He tightened his arm around her, and she leaned into him.  
Picture perfect couple, right Mister President?

The crowd cheered, voicing their opinion to such a question.

And their first real time on stage began. (The first one from before, it seemed so long ago, from a different life. Maybe already, of different people? They were mere preludes to all of this, this being the Capitol, this being on the stage with Caesar, this being the threats of everyone they knew. Unfinished business and love confessions? They were about to manifest and bloom all to be taped in front of a live studio audience.)

"So Katniss, Katniss," Caesar started off, looking pleased with the crowd's reaction. He wore a smirk, and the interview went as such.

Caesar asked, "What was that _unfinished business_ of yours?"

She smiled and tried to hide a blush (a real one at that, that should be noted, because she _was _embarrassed by that phrase, those words, and how they grew into what they truly became). "I think it's a little obvious what it was."

(The Capitol heard the reply of _Peeta, Peeta was my unfinished business. To kiss him and hold him even if it was just once and even if one of us didn't make it. I had to know what it was like, and I feel so, so lucky to have gotten the chance for both of us to still be alive_)

(Peeta heard _all I wanted to say was thank you_, but damn, she nudged her shoulder into him, she snuck a glance at him, and he smiled and winked at it all. That's all it was, yes, but she kissed him back, didn't she?)

(Katniss meant _I won't tell you a damn of what I mean, but you'll take this as you want, and how you want to take it is how I want you to take it. Isn't that right, Snow? There _is_ some unfinished business._)

Casear smiled. "I could make a guess." Did the crowd ever stop cheering? Katniss thought it was probably a good sign though, and just smiled a tinny movement of the mouth to them all (they of course, cheered louder). "Sadly though, this is _not_ the night of your interview," Caesar continued and the audience started to quiet down as some even went as far to boo the statement. Katniss was confused. Something so trivial as an interview, and they evaded her questions about it, and then it wasn't even truly tonight? "Tonight was your reunion. But there's so much to do! Tomorrow we have the interview, rest assured everyone, rest assured. But I believe the two of you must be brought to the village, and given a tour of your new home by your Caretaker."

Katniss tried to hide the fact that she had to swallow deeply. "The Village?" She asked. That wasn't her question though. Her question dealt with the words "your," "new" and "home," and how they were being used, and what exaclty they meant.

The crowd was quieter but they smiled. Caesar smiled. Peeta (nervous, fidgeting, questioning, _your new home_) smiled. Katniss attempted to arrange the muscles of her mouth upwards but she wasn't sure if it really worked. "Of course, of course!" Caesar Flickerman brightened. "The Village, of course you know of the Village." Katniss nodded and attempted another move of her mouth that she was sure to be a grimace by then. Peeta took her hand in his and nodded, and smiled _more_. The crowd cawed and smiled, and smiled, and smiled.

President Snow, somewhere nearby, sat in his office and watched the live interview with a smile on as well.

But she knew this.

"Well, I know that you, Peeta, have been in recovery and you, Katniss, you were... indisposed." _Roaming the hospital like a haunting, visiting others and standing outside locked doors. Annoying a drunk and getting annoyed by a drunk._ "But it was discussed very widely your living arrangements. As you know, the Village is made up of different sections for each District of the Reaped. Obviously you will be in the District Twelve area, along with Haymitch Abernathy."

The question wasn't asked but it might as well have been. _Why are you going through all of this? Why can't we just get off stage and go see our new houses? Why is it that every single decision of our life comes down to a popularity vote by anyone but us?_

"You two are very popular." The crowd cheered. Peeta smiled. Katniss attempted one. "And the courting of the two of you is something we all are looking forward to." More cheers, more attempts at smiles. Katniss was not able to move her face into a smile, but she was able to blush, and it seemed to spur the crowd on more. "We decided to take a step out for the two of you, as you will be living together in the Village."

Besides the crowd, who were cheering and yelling and screaming (_fuck is that lady crying?_), there was silence. Silence stilled in the bones of Peeta Mellark and Katniss Everdeen as they sat upon the stage holding hands, their grip on each other tightening.

Peeta cleared his throat and was first to speak (which of course, is not surprising at all. And if it was, it would soon turn out not to be. Peeta was the one to spin webs out of words. Katniss was the one who lit the flames, who _was_ the flames). "Now, Caesar, don't you think that's a little soon?" He laughed a bit, a nervous chuckle, and he seriously wondered what the hell was going on. They couldn't just deal with figuring everything out being neighbors? He couldn't get the time to sit her down and speak to her privately, tell her how truthful those words were, _I'm in love with the girl who volunteered from my District_, tell her more words than just that to let her know how much he means it all? He couldn't tell her how beautiful her voice is, how it still could calm him even if he hadn't heard it since they were children? This wasn't courting, no. Not at all.

(In reality, he'd find a way to do and say everything he set out to do. And more. There were the terms that the Capitol gave them, and then there were the terms that they decided to follow. They rarely matched up perfectly, but rather weaved in and out of each other, hiding secrets and concealing truths. But he was able to tell her about her voice, and he even got to hear it again too. But much later on, and after much, too much.)

"Nonsense Peeta! We all know here about how you love her, and that kiss! Well, we'll get to it tomorrow but we're pretty sure those feelings are_quite_ reciprocated. Us in the Capitol don't believe in stopping true love, and so, why wait? Besides, it would've happened anyway, within a month or two tops. May as well just start off ahead, am I right?"

Katniss found her ability to speak in the swell of the audience. "Thank you. I'm sure it'll be the start of a great time in our life." She wondered, somewhere deep in her head, when she learnt to bow so low. The memory of going past the fence back home in District Twelve with Gale, talking openly about the disdain for the Capitol amongst the trees, cursing and laughing. It was all so much simpler then, wasn't it?

When did she learn to bow so low? When did she learn to comply and grovel for things she didn't want. She felt disgusted with herself, but she knew the answer. It was just another way to survive. Instead of risking her life with it being illegal, she was risking herself and everything she held herself to be. She was used to living invisible, but now she had to be in a damn spotlight, interviewed, pried open. She had to live, and she had to make sure that Peeta lived. She used to make a living on the black market, but this, this already she realized, would be something to break her.

They stood up and said their goodbyes.

The crowd resumed their roar. Katniss remembered how to get her mouth to comply and smile. Peeta held her close.

And so the show goes.

* * *

"We need to talk."

He looked over at her, questioning. They walked behind a chattering Effie, just after coming off stage. He wanted to talk to her, needed to, but they were swooped up immediately by the bubbly creature of the Capitol (_but not always, right? She used to be just like us and they did this to her. Is that to happen to us as well? Will we soon not even recognize our own skin?_), being escorted around backstage so that they could be brought to the Village and to their new home. Yes, they definitely needed to talk, but Effie was right there and would most definitely not let them sit down and have the conversation they needded. He was going to agree, to question, but she then grabbed his collar and shoved the both of them into the nearby door. It was dark, and Katniss fumbled around muttering curses under her breath as she looked for a lightswitch. When she found it Peeta tried to block his eyes. "A supply closet?"

"We need to talk," she repeated, still not looking at him. She was looking through the shelves, bumping into him occasionally. There really wasn't much room in there. They barely just finished their interview, and he had a feeling Effie would be walking around, teetering on her heels, still going off about their schedule without even realizing that the two of them weren't around.

"Okay," he drawled out, his eyebrow quirked as she continued her search for... what? What the hell was she looking for?

She stopped looking around after a bit and took a deep breath. "Good. No cameras," she muttered again, and he wondered if they were really going to talk or if she was going to just mutter under her breath about whatever she was talking of. Her face was far off, worried, and a couple of pieces of hair were hanging in front of her. He brushed them off to the side, and she shook her head and focused on him.

"We need to talk?" He questioned.

She nodded. "Yeah, uhm, ah–" she wanted to pace but there was no room to. She almost didn't have room to put her arms out. How was she supposed to describe this? _Well Peeta, while you were unconscious the President visited me and we have to pretend to be in love and we're living together and if we don't we're going to be sold into prostitution and our families back at home will be destroyed and probably our entire home would be so please don't be repulsed by the idea of kissing me because you're going to have to_. Well they've kissed already. A couple of times. Just before, during Caesar's interview they did for their reunion. She was nervous, but then forgot about the cameras then. And she didn't even know they were there when they first kissed before the first donation. How long ago was that then? Maybe Haymitch got into Peeta's room without telling Katniss, telling him the deal. She could see the grouchy drunk in her mind, scowling and pointing at Peeta in his bed. Telling him to kiss her like he meant it. He was a rather good actor.

She tried to shake those thoughts from her mind and get back in the present. "Have you seen Haymitch?" She'll start there.

"No..." He answered, not understanding why they had to speak in a supply closet, make sure there were no cameras, to talk about Haymitch.

Her eyebrows furrowed. So Haymitch didn't meet with him. She had to meet and talk with Haymitch and the President, and everyone...she wondered if she was the first person to have seen Peeta. "Did anyone visit you in the hospital?"

He was quite certain that this still wasn't the conversation she dragged him into a supply closet for but answered her questions nonetheless. "No...although the nurses told me you visited me when I was still asleep once." He cocked a smile at her and she scowled and forced away a blush at that. _Yes, I'm sure they told you I visited you. Every damn person in Panem knows that I did except for you._

"Yeah, well, you were unconscious."

"I heard you were very sweet."

"Don't Peeta!" Her voice was biting, and he drew back slightly (could only slightly in the lack of space that a supply closet gives) at her tone. She felt bad instantly and tried to take back in her anger, her voice lowering to almost a whisper. "I'm sorry for yelling, but please. Look. A lot happened while you were unconscious and then recovering, or whatever. We're in trouble, basically. Your strategy has brought us more attention than was wished for us, and so now we have to portray the picture perfect couple. Love each other unconditionally, needed to kiss in case the end of my life was coming, those kind of things."

The word 'strategy' kept repeating in his mind and he felt like he wanted to deck Haymitch for telling her that this was all a strategy. Because that would have been the drunk's doing, wouldn't it? He knew he had to have at least placed the thought in her mind. But maybe it was better. He didn't make a plan with what to do if he survived. He was intent on giving her the chance to live and never waking up. It took him a whole day to try and go through his memories of the morning before the surgery when Katniss visited him to go through whether or not that all really happened. _Katniss visited? She kissed me? No, no, I kissed her? Well she kissed back, right?_

Right?

He tried to shake the thoughts out of his mind (it was confusing, so damn confusing, and of course, _strategy_) and he nodded. He understood. He gave the Capitol the prologue of a beautiful story that they wished to get their claws upon and devour. They had to act it out. He had to act as if he was in love with Katniss.

Well that was simple enough. The acting that would come in would be in the form of doing what was deemed appropriate by the Capitol with what to do in love. He wasn't sure how the people in this place showed affection, but he had a hunch it'd be different from the modest and private love that takes root and flourishes, that is sung about back in his district. If anything, at least it'd be very showy.

Katniss though, she'd have to be part of this act too. She'd have to act in love with him. He wasn't a fool enough to think that she was in love with him. He liked the thought that maybe, just maybe, he held a chunk of her heart for himself that he was able to chisel out of her. He was sure that she at least wasn't completely repulsed by his company. So that was a start.

"Alright." He said, nodding. "I get it. Strategy. Trouble. In love." His voice was methodical as he went through the point, and if she noticed (she did) she didn't say anything about it. "Anything else?"

She sighed heavily. "Yes. But not enough time running off from Effie and throwing you into a supply closet to talk about. We'll talk about it later alright?" She moved to step around him and go for the door, but he stayed in the way. "What are you doing? I have to leave now."

"Okay just–" His hands were at his shirt buttons, and her mind was reeling.

"What are you doing?" She cut him off as she stared, a panic building in her at what he could be doing in a supply closet with a girl he was supposed to be madly in love with.

"You said we have to act completely and totally in love."

"Right."

"Okay...well you just shoved me into a supply closet. Try and think of a reason why someone would do that."

To talk to them. To punch them. To yell at them for taking all of their food. To apologize for being a bitch at some point.

"If they were in _love_," He added.

To kiss.

_Oh_. She blushed. "Oh." He chuckled, making it so that some of the buttons of his shirt were buttoned wrong. Katniss sighed, _Let the games begin_, (how many times is there going to be another game beginning? It keeps feeling like that's all this is, game after game piled on top of each other) and pulled her dress slightly so it sat on her figure weird. So it looked like someone was grabbing at it, wanting to get passed it. She looked back up at him, his hair entirely too neat, and brought her hands up into it. He needed a haircut she supposed, his bangs slicked back but she knew they hung low on his forehead, and the long hair would do fine for what they needed to do. She ran her hands quickly through his slicked back hair, making it almost instantly become unkept and paired with the unbuttoned shirt, exactly what they needed.

"Now mess my hair up," Katniss instructed as she put her hands down and Peeta nodded. His hand caught the bottom of the small braid at the side of her head and unwove it, working delicately. She was about to say something, about to say how it had to look as if they were fooling around in a damn supply closet not just leaving light caresses upon each other, when he did the same as she did and ran his hands quickly through her hair.

He finished, but kept his hands in her hair, and the two of them were staring at each other. She could only guess how the two of them looked, a right mess, and the thought of what people would assume made her blush again. The words were out of her mouth before she could even stop to think (and not, absolutely not say them). "Now kiss me."

He didn't need to be told twice, and Peeta's lips found hers, his hands still in her hair. He backed her up, only a couple of steps, but she soon found herself against the shelves, random who-knows-what sticking into her back, but she didn't even notice really, she couldn't, because there was Peeta, holding her, kissing her. It was much different from their first kiss, which was panicked and desperate, and the one they shared on stage, which was for an audience, absolutely. This one had a desperation to it as well, Katniss noted, but a different tone of it from the first one. She wondered if Peeta would swallow her whole, his hands going from her hair to her waist. She wanted to push _him_ against the wall, be the one with the force, with the power in it, but the thought brought her back to reality. What the hell was she doing?

She pushed the boy away and the two of them tried to catch their breath. And then, she slapped him (lightly, but still, it was a slap). "Don't," she started, and cursed how her voice sounded, so out of breath. Because of him. "Don't kiss me when there aren't cameras. Or. Or, whatever. Don't do that."

His hand was on his cheek, she didn't hit him hard, definitely not even close to the strength she had, but he was surprised by it. Then again he was rather surprised by her request. He looked at her with a raised eyebrow and tried to suppress a laugh – he didn't wish to be "surprised" by another Everdeen slap, and he was sure there'd be more force behind it if he was laughing at her. "If I remember correctly you told me to."

She scowled and tried to move to the door. "You should have been a gentleman and pulled away."

This time he let a slight chuckle under his breath pass through. "No, I don't think I'll be able to pull away from you."

She turned and gave him a look as she turned the light off again, and he wasn't sure what he saw. He didn't see anger, although that would be what would make sense, right? Confusion? Or maybe understanding? The day felt so long and taxing, and yet it wasn't even close to being finished with them. She turned back to the door as she opened it and stuck her head out, looking both ways. With the coast seeming to be clear (just what she hoped for), She took his hand and stepped out, closing the door behind him. It only took about three seconds of them leaving and walking for them to be discovered, flushed faces, unkept hair and disarrayed clothes.

"There you two are, where have you been?" Effie called out to them, her heels click-clacking their way to her. As she took in their appearance her frustration came through even more. "And what have you two been doing?"

"Nothing, Effie, we're here." Katniss answered, knowing full well the uneasiness was apparent on her voice. That's what they wanted. People would take in their appearance, their several minutes they disappeared, and draw conclusions. _Conclusions that would be true?_ It was not even the first day and this 'strategy' was taking its toll on Katniss as she felt a headache coming forward from her confusion. She never even kissed a boy before coming here, and now she was expected to sneak off and do so all the time. To _live_ with a boy.

Effie looked between the girl's continually blushed face and the boys smirk, at their hands holding each other, and she shook her head. Effie turned around. "Please keep up with me. And you can sneak off to do whatever you want after we get you to your home."

* * *

**a/n:** the intention was to have this posted last night, but I by accident passed out in the middle of editing and woke up sprawled out with my laptop on top of me at like, 4am. So oops. Here's the next part. I was going to go into the introduction of the Village and the house, but that would have been a lot more and I wanted to get an update up. The next update is going to be probably rather long, and will include that, as well as soon different povs will be coming in, of back in District 12 as well as other people in the Capitol around Katniss and Peeta. I posted the playlist for this part on my livejournal, as well as a link to it in a tumblr post. I'll put a link to it on my profile, so make sure you check it out. Hope you enjoy, and thank you to the people that reviewed and people adding this to their favorites/alerts! :)


	3. part iii

**part iii.** _the roads that are fenced in, they keep it all out and keep them in?; the color, the color, it takes over and entices her, invites her in, and is the welcome mat of the new home sweet home; a tour of it all exclusively for them, exclusively televised for everyone to watch, of course, yes; expectations in the form of duvets and comforters; and then we're left alone_

* * *

"Here we are!" Her voice had the Capitol twang piercing through it and Katniss and Peeta stood side-by-side, holding hands, and flinched at it. Katniss had quickly come to hate every time Effie Trinket's mouth opened and uttered words, because all she could think of was how she used to be a girl from the Seam before the Capitol clawed away the soot and replaced it all with shiny things. _It won't happen to me,_ she told herself as she looked down, still wearing that stupid dress, that stupid shiny, beautiful dress. _It won't happen to me or Peeta,_ she repeated as she took in the suit that Peeta was in, the red accents that let everyone know they were a team in case they couldn't tell by the hand holding or occaisional caught kiss (it was supposed to be a secret one but someone, somehow, just caught those lips on that cheek, oh dear, I do wonder what will be on the gossip column tomorrow).

(His words were whispered into her ear when they were in the car on the drive towards the outskirts of the Capitol. They sat silent, watched the skyscrapers fall into themselves and slowly trickle off. Effie stayed silent herself even, fixed upon her clipboard. They weren't holding hands. They sat close to each other. Peeta leaned in and he whispered. _Remember, we're madly in love, so it's alright to kiss me anytime you feel like it._ She turned to look at him and wasn't sure whether to laugh or scowl at him. _Or you know, ask me to kiss you. That's alright to do again._ She decided a scowl. He laughed it off and turned away, but he already could feel the beginning of a bit of bitterness that wasn't fair for him to have. It wasn't _her_ fault, of course, it wasn't either of theirs, it was the Capitol and their sick interest in the people they raised for slaughter. Kissing him was a chore for her, a duty. Kiss him or you're in trouble. It wasn't fair to be, but there was a piece of Peeta that was bitter.)

(When they got out of the car, Peeta took her hand and helped her. She smiled at him a bit too loudly and kissed his cheek. Their fingers laced. The car drove off. Effie stood out in front of them. Peeta felt a bit of himself that burned where her lips were on his cheek, and it was almost painful.)

(Burned him. And he wondered how else he could get destroyed by this all if a little kiss on the cheek could do such heaviness.)

(It wasn't the question to ask. It wasn't a question to ever ask.)

(They both asked it too much and the answer never seemed finished with them.)

Katniss realized she didn't even know what Effie's last name from her life in District Twelve was. Trinket, that was an obvious creation of the Capitol. There were no trinkets in a place like District Twelve.

Katniss and Peeta looked ahead to what Effie meant with _here we are!_ They weren't there yet though, not to their house (not a home, they had separate homes, and they were unreachable, couldn't be touched). They were just in front of a fence, a sign, and three roads.

And of course, white rosebushes. They climbed their way up the feet of the sign, as if wishing to herald their presence more than the name of the place they were.

It was simple enough to figure out. The three roads split up into more roads, each of them eventually winding their way to a street for each District of the Reaped "Victor's" (Katniss remembered Johanna referencing something about a Victor's Village, and she figured, well, here they were). They were small, too small for cars (which gave the reason to why they were released here instead of in front of their house. No cars in the village). The sign was a deep dark green that blended in with the forest that was off in the distance. Katniss looked at the trees with relief, hoping that they'd be close to the house they ended up in, hoping beyond hope for no Capitol skyscrapers and no bleached out hospitals. The sign had words on it (which wasn't surprising, because what _else_ would a sign have) in a pale yellow that almost was white, and it said in plain block letters "the Village." It all seemed a bit odd but Katniss appreciated the fact that the styles of the Capitol seemed to not seep in into this area upon first glance.

Maybe that fence kept it all out? She wasn't sure about the fence. It wasn't electric, it seemed harmless, but it _was_ a fence, it _was_ there, and it had some duty, whether to keep something out or to keep something (someone, someone_s_) in.

Katniss wasn't sure.

"This is the entrance to the Village," Effie continued. Katniss and Peeta both tried to strain their eyes to see where the roads led to houses, to where somewhere _they'd_ be living, but couldn't see any sort of thing. "These three roads take you to different areas. The one on the left are for the lower numbered districts, one through four, the middle five through eight, the last on the right, where we will be going, nine through twelve. Let us go, let us go!"

"What about Haymitch?" Peeta asked. They hadn't seen the man since Katniss saw him before she went on stage. Peeta hadn't seen him at all (if he was being honest – which he wasn't – he felt some bitterness at that also, about how the stupid drunk sat vigil with Katniss, the one who woke up, and didn't give the time of day to Peeta, the one who actually had complications. Everything that man did seemed to build up to show how his loyalties at least did _not_ lie with Peeta's best interests in mind, as far as he was concerned).

(Peeta, in shorter words, wasn't as content as most expected him to be, as he was used to. Anger wasn't something that always stored itself in his veins but it lived there, and everything over the last couple of hours felt like it was trying to clot within him.)

Effie waved off the question and walked forward, waving for them to follow. "He already made his way back to his home. He'll be living right across from the two of you, and your only neighbor so I suggest getting cosy with the man." She paused and smirked back at them. "Or you can just stay cosy with yourselves."

Katniss looked off to her side at the comment and tried to make it so she wasn't scowling. She knew somewhere they was probably a hidden camera. There was at least a bug, definitely, listening in to everything they were saying. Maybe there was one on her. There were the two white rosebushes at the sign to the Village, perhaps those had hidden recorders in them? She didn't know where they were, but she could feel them crawling over her skin and infiltrating everything but her mind, her mind, her precious only safehold.

She felt paranoid, but also that maybe that was a good thing. Always believing that someone was watching would help keep her, _them_, alive.

It could also drive her mad.

* * *

"Sorry we're late!"

Katniss was so lost in her mind, in trying to dissect the world and open it up so all the cameras and recording devices would dribble out, that she didn't hear the car pull up. People marched out and it took Peeta squeezing her hand to turn and face them with a smile on her face.

Someone came out with a camera. Her smile crackled.

At least she knew where it was now.

Effie gushed out words wrapped in the Capitol flair again. "Peeta, Katniss, this is the camera crew." (She always regarded Peeta first. Most people did. Katniss wasn't surprised. He had _proper manners_. His edges weren't jagged and he wasn't from the Seam. He was easier to swallow.) "That would be Castor and Pollux, with the equipment. Messalla is the one stepping out now. He'll help with make up touch ups in between shoots and other things. Now where's Cressida, ah, there! Cressida!" A woman with a shaved head looked up at Effie Trinket, eyeing the woman's scorching orange wig.

"Nice to see you, Miss Trinket." The woman named Cressida jutted her hand out. "Peeta Mellark. Katniss Everdeen. Pleasure to meet you."

Peeta shook her hand first. "It's nice to meet you, Cressida. I trust you to only capture my good side."

The group laughed. Katniss thought for a second she tasted rusty blood, but maybe it was just from the coughs she had earlier in the morning (_it was nothing, you're fine, take these vitamins, they'll be gone_). She didn't want any side of Peeta Mellark on camera, any side of _her_ on camera. She wanted to walk past the fence (what was it keeping out? What was it keeping in?) and keep out all the cameras and all the Capitol and live undisturbed and alone with the woods so near (maybe she could even go in them? Maybe the fence has included them in its cocoon?).

No, that's not what she wanted. She wanted to go home. But that wasn't an option.

_Or you could go home._ Snow's voice kicked in her mind.

She hoped the trees soon to be surrounding her smelt the same as the ones in Twelve. Or maybe she wanted them to smell like nothing at all from that place, the place she used to live and call home. Maybe it'd be too much. Maybe the scent would draw tears to streak her face and her eyes to gloss over. Would she sit at the window, staring at birds and will them to sing and stop singing? She imagined her mother, she imagined herself in her mother's old bathrobe, in her mother's spot, in a house bigger than all of the Seam and gold upon her fingers.

She didn't know if she wanted the trees to be like the ones in Twelve. All she knew was that either way it wouldn't be right, wouldn't be the way she truly wanted it.

She wanted it to be home. She missed the Seam. She missed Prim. She even missed the people who looked passed her as she lived each day, that didn't even notice her and she even missed the occasional townie that'd spit in her direction.

The Capitol's praise was too much.

The cameras set up. "Alright, we're ready when you are," Cressida told everyone.

There was a stillness through them all, and Effie nervously checked her clipboard and willed the two of them to do _something._

Katniss' voice found her. "What exactly are we doing?" She saw the red light, they were already filming. What were they filming? They stood on a road that diverged three ways, a sign, a fence. They held hands, they stood, they stood. What were they filming? "Why are you filming?"

"You weren't told?" Cressida asked Katniss and Peeta both, but her eyes moved to Effie.

Effie looked up from her clipboard. "Of course they were told. I told them everything. They weren't listening, these two were off _fooling around_." She tsked, and Katniss felt a blush begin but she beat it down. "They can't keep their hands off of each other."

"Good. That's perfect," Messalla broke in.

Perfect, it was perfect.

"I'll get you up to speed," Cressida told them. "We're going to film your entrance and tour of your new house. We're going to start filming now so as we can get some shots of the two of you walking down the road to set everything up. We'll get a shot of the house. We'll go through the tour with you, seeing all the rooms and your reactions. And then you have the night to yourselves."

They ignored Messalla's wiggling eyebrows.

Katniss asked another question, finding her voice again. "Okay. What do we have to do?"

"Be yourselves. Do what you do. Be in love."

It was a check off list. Don't do. Do what you have to. Play the part. She nodded, and Peeta squeezed her fingers as he rose her hand that was held in his, kissing her knuckles as he looked at her. The camera caught it, while another swooped the area to capture the field that grew the three roads that led to the different sections of the Village. It was a foreign scene to the Capitol, with its jagged skyscrapers and bouncing colors. Things were subdued. There was a fence.

It seemed a nice viewing meadow, like an exhibit for those savages from the Districts that didn't just go and die.

Katniss brought their hands down to swing between the two of them, and Katniss and Peeta followed behind Effie Trinket as they made their way down the road on the right. The road on the right, for Districts nine through twelve. One could tell how favored the Districts like one and two were compared to a place like twelve from the roads. The road on the left that led to one through three almost seemed to sparkle with its off-beaten ways. The middle road too, although some dust seemed to find its way.

The road on the right that they made their way down had much dust that found its way atop it. Maybe at once it was in the state that the road on the left was, but it was long-since forgotten. Katniss knew that the population found at the end of these three roads would mirror the states of them. The left road would have many, the middle a good deal, the right not even a handful.

Was Haymitch the only living soul down this road? His drinking made more and more sense. New neighbors were coming though, and with them were the cameras, were the bugs.

It was summer, and the bugs were alive and kicking. And listening, always listening.

Conversation tittered and laughter tattered the calm soon night. They wove down through the dusty road to the right, Messalla commenting that someone _better_ come and clean the filthy road if they really want them to do their job and film the two lovers. Katniss flinched, and hoped the dust would stay forever. Maybe it'd keep the Capitol out.

Perish the thought if any dust got on Capitol shoes.

* * *

The road converged again, dirtier and dirtier. Were they still in the Capitol? Maybe, technically, but this dirt was almost enough to convince them all otherwise. The skyline was plain and visible on the horizon behind them, looming over them as if a dare to have them try and forget where they were, who was watching. Four more branches off of the right road, and they go on the right road again, traveling towards the houses reserved for those who were Reaped and actually lived from District Twelve.

Conversation was left behind on the first road to the right, dragged behind and left in dust, not showing up in the clots of dirt that lined up the second right road that they followed. Peeta still held Katniss' hand. Katniss gripped back and wished she had her boots, knowing blisters were probably forming on her feet from heels.

(Lest she complain about it. She made the mistake to in front of Effie and she went off ranting about high heels and how it was good practice, walking on the uneven road, walking through the dirt. Good practice so that after all this when she'd have to just walk five feet from backstage to the interviewing couch maybe she'd be able to do it more graceful, and better poise.)

She knew the house that they'd be staying in (not the home they'd live in, that had different meanings, it wasn't what they were doing) as they started to appear, forming upon the oncoming road. The forest was close, the second–righted road far to an edge and the green seeming to sweep around the end of the road. The road ended still some several hundred feet ahead, and ended with just a sudden stop that became consumed by the green woods. Houses dotted the area, much grass living in between each one. The house on the edge all the way to the right had one light on, assumed to be Haymitch. The house at the far end of the road to the left though, to the left...

Katniss knew that was theirs. She didn't have to wait in anticipation for Effie's announcement. What struck her about it wasn't that it was just across from Haymitch's so it'd be a decent assumption, or that somehow she read Effie's paperwork. She knew it was their's from one simple detail. A color, really.

What seemed at first a yellow line lived among the front lawn. As they moved closer, it spread more and more, as if they were watching them all bloom.

"Effie," she said, her voice not nearly as shaky as she felt. "The house all the way at the end, on the left? Is that it?"

Effie looked at her papers and muttered. "All the way at the end let me see the map, let me see. Eighteen, nineteen, yes, hmm, ah!" She looked up and smiled. "Number twenty-three! Yes, that is your new home, all the way at the end on the left."

A sick sort of flip happened in Peeta's stomach at that. _Almost time to play house_. He wanted to go back to being locked in that hospital room, laying for hours on that hospital bed. At least everything was expected and known. This though. _This._

"How did you know?" Effie asked, a bit disappointed. She wanted to introduce them to the building, the _home_, be the one to say "ta-da!" Instead the girl mused it correctly.

Her answer was a word that didn't make sense to anyone but her. Well, her and the person that made sure the yellow greeted her. "Dandelions."

They stopped near the edge of the sea of yellow that marked the house that was their destination. It was true, the dandelions. They swelled amonst the green, almost consumed all the green, and some still hadn't bloomed, still were the fluffs of white waiting amongst them to spread more seeds, to envelope more green in yellow.

"Oh dear," Effie stated looking at them all. Everyone was still and silent, at the edge, and looking down at the yellow. She didn't realize it but she squeezed his hand, Peeta's, because, well, there were dandelions. Dandelions brought her to him, to tumbling in them when they first met, to the one lone one in the middle of a late frost when she looked away from his eyes, ashamed. The dandelions were because of him.

Dandelions were because of Snow, and Katniss knew that, and understood (just like he knew she would).

"Oh dear," Effie said again, "these will have to go. I'll have to call around to get some of the Avoxes to come and take care of this, although I don't know why it hadn't been taken care of before we got here, honestly. And to think, no other lawns have–"

That was the point, of course. No other lawns had dandelions. Every other one was absolute and vibrant green. "No, Effie. It's okay. They're supposed to be here."

Everyone looked at her. The red light on the camera pierced her. "What?"

"I–" She didn't know what to say. Peeta squeezed her hand (there had been many moments already for those reassuring squeezes, haven't there?), and she had to hold on tighter. Because it was dandelions, _the dandelions, and dammit, he was here_. And the dandelions were there too. And Snow knew.

Snow _knew_.

That's what it was all about. She could figure it out quickly. The dandelions were to flag her down and her down specifically. Because he knew that she liked dandelions, for some reason or another. He didn't have to know why, but he knew that she did.

He heard the conversation with Finnick where they talked about dandelions.

Dammit. What else did they talk about? Annie, oh no, not Annie. Annie adorned with a scar on her head. Annie that they're trying to put off as mad. Annie who was different and how it already drove Finnick to his own kind of madness.

And Prim. They talked about Prim.

But they knew about Prim. They knew that she knew their games, she didn't care about that. She just wished there was a way to erase Prim's name from every conversation that happens in the Capitol. _I saved her from this place, don't you dare say her name._ But apparently she couldn't take her own advice.

But she wasn't sure that Prim was what the dandelions were about. She had a feeling maybe it was just a warning, a sentence in a mild tone that was more threatening gentle than it would be yelled. _I'm watching you, Miss Everdeen_, the dandelion sea said to her. _I can always hear you, and I'm always listening._

The lie came up quicker than she thought she'd be able to. "It's fine, Effie. I talked to Snow the other day, you know, about everything. And then told him how dandelions were my favorites. It's fine. I like them."

"Dandelions are weeds," Effie reminded her, her nose scrunched up. _This argument again._

Katniss had to remind herself not to roll her eyes. "I know Effie, I know."

"Well...Peeta! This is both Katniss' _and_ your home. Do you like the dandelions?" Two people. A couple. Lovers. They had to make decisions_together_.

He looked over at Katniss who stared straight ahead at the yellow. He tried to read her, tried to understand what each piece of this was all about. He was pretty sure there was a lot she was keeping from him, a lot everyone was keeping from him. The dandelions lazily arched with the wind and he stared at them, stared at them hard, and felt a part of himself calm. Dandelions were in District Twelve. A bed of dandelions where they met. A single dandelion picked the day after he gave her the bread.

"Yeah," he answered, the single word, the single syllable, and it was his turn to stare transfixed at the yellow as Katniss looked over at him. Still attached at the hands. It was almost too much, that one word that seemed loaded with much more than those four letters should be able to pack, him, the dandelions, his hand. She wondered why _he_ liked them, or if he even did. Maybe he was just saying that to pacify the problem, so that they could just move on. Or maybe he did enjoy them. _Do you like them the same reason I do? Do you see them and think of childhood, of hope amongst hunger, of spring in the frost? It was the first time you saved my life, and now here we are and you saved me again, it's only appropriate that there be dandelions._

She didn't say any of that though. The red light still was on, the camera fixed on them, their hands still clutching each other as if a cliff's edge. They couldn't take this, no matter what, not this. Not the dandelions. So she just give them a simple shrug, _I like them_, and that's it.

"Well then, that's settled." Cressida said, waving an arm and stepping forward to stand in line with them. "Let's get down to business now. First things first, we need a costume change."

"Costume change?" Katniss and Peeta both repeated.

Messalla chimed in. "You don't really think that you can take a tour of the house in _those_ clothes, do you?"

"They were apparently fine to walk here in..." _Did they seriously make me blister me feet and deal with high heels just for some nice, romantic shots walking to our new home in formal wear?_ She clenched a fist tightly.

Effie and Cressida both at the same time then waved their arms. "It looked wonderful Katniss, trust me," Messalla assured her.

Katniss held back a snort. _Trust me_.

"Alright, I'm going to go inside and get you two some clothes. We're going to have to blindfold them so that they can get to the bathroom and change without seeing anything. Oh, I wish we had Cinna and Portia, I guess I'll just have to help them with all of this!" Effie rambled on and went into the house. Everyone stood outside in an awkward silence, not knowing what to say.

What was there to say? _Thank you for invading my privacy. It's an honor to show the entire country where I'm going to be living with a person you're forcing me to be in love with. I'm glad that I gave up my entire life to you. I want to smash that red light on your camera._ No, not much to say.

Katniss wondered if she'd have another private moment with Effie. Where they could talk like they did before, about the Seam and how she was changed, outside and then in like a poison. She wanted to know. She wanted to know why it happened, how she let it happen to her. Why she let it change everything and all. She seemed even more Capitol Effie since they woke up. She seemed to be burying the piece of her that Katniss glanced at late one night more and more.

Peeta shifted uncomfortably on his feet and Katniss looked over at him. The slowly setting sun had a stunning effect on the place, and if she tried hard enough (she did at that moment), it could just be a nice wooded area, at sunset, with Peeta. She needed to learn how to do this. To erase things from her vision, and only allow some things through. Peeta rubbed his thumb into a circle on her hand.

_I can do this._

* * *

_I can't do this._

They did end up getting blindfolded. And helped dressed by Effie. Peeta just laughed and told her to keep her hands to herself while Katniss felt extremely uncomfortable. The act of getting undressed in front of someone, _being_ undressed _by_ someone, was enough to make her uneasy. She wanted Cinna there as well. It was easier with him. She knew that Effie was just dealing with business while doing it as well, but she felt the need to fill the space with words, and a lot of them, and Katniss felt her hands shake.

That all, and the fact that she was being undressed by someone while she was blindfolded. Not exactly a comfortable situation for her.

Soon enough they were dressed casually, _Look, it'll be as if you're back in your District, right?__, and standing at the front door, Effie in front of them and the cameras behind them._

"Peeta, Katniss. Welcome to your new home," Effie told them, and opened the door. She walked inside and Peeta and Katniss were supposed to follow in, but they stood in shock, stuck to the front porch.

The house from the outside looked big enough, with brick and stone and white siding all flowing together to create a picture perfect house for someone (someones) that had a lot of money. The porch was kept with its wooded detail, just stained, and Effie let them know that there was another porch out back as well. Inside though, where Effie stepped through, where Katniss and Peeta were supposed to step through, was a prelude to the monstrosity that was the house.

"Well, come on, come on!" Effie said and pulled the two forward to step inside.

They were in their house. In what would be called their home. It wasn't a home. It was foreign.

Their eyes traveled everywhere. The door opened to what Effie described as the foyer. Dark wood and warm yellow lights greeted them, as well as white walls. The white walls immediately brought their thoughts to the Hospital, and Peeta asked right away if they could paint the rooms. "If you want to, dear, although why would you do it yourself? Just let me know and I'll get Avoxes here to take care of it."

Peeta and Katniss shared a look, and it was decided that they'd deal with painting the walls.

The room then went into what Effie called a sitting room, which moved into a living room (_Well a living room has the television, has books! The sitting room is no such thing, honestly_), which moved into a formal dining room, which moved into a kitchen with a table for less formal settings (_If I am ever over for dinner than we are to use both your china and the dining room, I hope you know_). Peeta wanted to look around more in the kitchen. He missed the bakery, the big ovens and baking with his family (with his father), and so his family wasn't there, but he could definitely bake.

"We made sure there was a huge oven for you when we heard you were a baker, Peeta. Why don't you look in the cabinets?"

They were stocked, amongst the usual that every house in the Village got, with top of the line baking products. And ingredients. Peeta gushed for a bit at it, and Katniss couldn't help but chuckle. At least he'd find a way to escape it all.

Effie went on. "And here is a phone. We put some phone numbers you may need to know in the Capitol, as well as others that live here in the other districts. If you have anyone back at home that has a phone, you can call them as well."

Katniss rushed over to the phone, in its place right next to the refrigerator. "Really? Effie would I, could I have them install a telephone in my house? So I can talk to my family?" She didn't want to ask, not on camera, not give them anymore, but she couldn't help it. Maybe she'd get to hear Prim's voice. Maybe she'd get to hear how everyone was. The temptation was too much.

She laughed. "Oh, I'm sure. You're already sending money home, what's a little telephone installation."

Peeta came over to see the phone and added the number to the Mellark's bakery on the list by it. "It usually never really rang, but we still had it in case the Mayor needed to order something usually."

There was a bathroom as well on the first floor, a study, and a sunroom that connected to the outside porch. They stood for a bit on the outside porch, and Katniss knew that this would be her escape. It was almost completely pleasant out there, if she could only clear her mind. The night was alive with crickets and other insects, fireflies darted around in the late summer evening, and the lawn trailed with a couple of dandelions (most likely stray seeds from the front lawn) that lead to the forest. It was right there, and it was green, and it was so close that Katniss wanted to run into it right at that moment. She willed herself to turn back around and to finish the tour, remembering the cameras, remembering that red light, and knowing that the sooner they see all of the house the sooner she could go and climb a tree.

_Maybe I'll sleep there tonight._

(She never made it to the woods that evening.)

They went up the stairs for the second floor. The first floor was big as it is, but a second floor? Katniss' entire house in the Seam could fit in the sunroom, with room to spare. It made her sick how huge all of these houses were, just waiting to see if someone _wouldn't_ die when they picked out pieces of them for the beloved Capitol citizens. Why couldn't all this money go towards the District? Every time she turned the corner, she saw a part of the Seam. And it was as if they accused.

_You came from here, from us. How dare you live in this now? How dare you have these luxuries?_

She could only be happy that the electricity was usually turned off, that many family in the Seam didn't have televisions and could only see programs in stores or at school if there was a mandatory viewing. She didn't want them to see this, to see her swimming in excess. She didn't want them to see anything. The thought of people back home that never talked to her before, or made fun of her, or sometimes just smiled or she traded with, suddenly watching her life on cameras as entertainment was a loud thought. Girls at school would swoon and slobber any time Finnick Odair came around, it was always annoying to her. Now though, now her and Peeta were in the spotlight.

Would people who didn't even look her way before suddenly find an interest in all of this, in her? Would they swap stories of _that one time I ate a cake made by Peeta Mellark and that other time that Katniss Everdeen traded with me some turkey?_ She tried to shake the thought of of her head.

The stairs led to a large and open hallway with doors. An open room, a bathroom, a closet all were up here. A guest bedroom, and then the master bedroom. They walked in, a large bed with a canopy occupied most of the room and seemed to dominate. There were doors leading out of the bedroom, to two separate closets (_his and hers!_) as well as the master bathroom. The master bathroom was huge, and beautiful. The toilet resided there, as well as a sink, a full counter and mirror, a large tub that looked as if she could practice swimming in, and a separate shower. There was so much space to move around, and she was sure if she wanted to take the mattress and put it in here there would be more than enough room. They went back into the master bedroom, back in front of that bed, that big bed.

Katniss tried to swallow, but her mouth was completely dry.

"Now, now, there is the guest bedroom so I suggest that the two of you get to know each other better before you find yourself dreaming side-by-side."

They just nodded, and Katniss noticed that Peeta looked a bit paler. She knew what the Capitol wanted, wanted them right in the same bed right away probably, oh, just how beautiful of a scandalous relationship it would be. In the hospital she dozed in and out of sleeping, usually with the help of medication, in a tiny bed. And before that, back in Twelve, she always slept in the bed with Prim. Once, she had a sleepover with a friend and Katniss was left alone. She didn't sleep that night, at least less as usual. _Dreaming side-by-side._ Nightmares, always nightmares, and this place only made them worse. But she never lived in a house with a man, besides her father who died when she was young. And she was expected to love him, to sleep in the same bed as him.

Everything was wrapping up. "Alright you two. We'll be going now. Enjoy your new home! I'll be seeing you tomorrow to collect you to get you ready for your interview with Caesar, and we can then discuss future appearances with him afterwards."

She said it so off-handed, but they both noted it. "Future appearances?" Peeta asked.

"Of course. You'll be giving interviews all the time. And then some. You two really weren't listening to me when I was giving you the information were you?" She asked, sighing. They shook their head no. "Fine. We'll run through it quick. You have expectations now." _Yeah, no shit._ Katniss held in an eye roll. "You must at least do weekly interviews with Caesar, which we'll figure out the days and times with him tomorrow. You have a week to settle in to your new home, but after that your schedule starts. You have to make daily public appearances, whether it's an interview or a filming, like we did today, or you go to some hip store in the Capitol. Be seen, talk to people, your _fans_, the like. They all love you, so don't worry about that. Oh there's more, but that's the basic. Also, you'll be having a house warming party at the end of the week. You don't need to prepare at all for it, so not to worry. Avoxes will make sure to get the place ready and stocked with the food needed."

"And that will be filmed?" Katniss asked unnecessarily.

"Oh yes, of course. The Capitol would feel awfully left out if not! The attendees are the others throughout the Village, and of course Cressida and the crew here. I'll make an appearance as well, and make sure that Haymitch can walk across the street to it before he starts his long night in a bottle." A nasty expression crossed her face at the thought of the drunk. She cleared it quick with a smile. "Anyway, the two of you must be tired! It's a lot. Well, get some rest and I'll see you tomorrow. It's going to be a big, big, big day!"

Cheeks were kissed, cameras were turned off, hugs were given, and then Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark were left alone in the foyer of their new house. The crickets from outside couldn't be heard inside, the still air seemed heavy, and too many words existed in between the two of them that should have been said. They weren't holding hands anymore, Peeta took note of that, and both of them didn't look at each other.

He went to talk. Maybe. He wasn't sure what to say, but damn he had to say _something_. But she just looked over at him then turned away, and walked up the stairs. He watched her retreating form as it made its way up the stairs and listened to the silence as she stood there until she finally decided upon a door and went through, shutting it.

She let herself into the guest bedroom. It was big, huge, with a big bed in it as well, although not as luxurious as the master bedroom. Only one door was in there, to a closet, and when she opened it she saw it was empty. Tomorrow, an interview. Weekly interviews. A house warming party. Appearances, talking to citizens with smiling faces. She curled up in the closet, the blanket from the bed wrapped around her.

It was much harder, she realized day after day more and more, to live. It was so damn hard.

* * *

**a/n:** end of part three! I was going to put in one more part, but I already got carried away much more with details. Besides, I want more time to think about the next part as well as wanted to get this one out now. Thanks to everyone who has been reviewing and keeping up with the story. I have made on tumblr a wip fic blog, where as I write I post snippets of this story as well as other wip things I'm writing (there's so many). If you want the url, let me know in a review or a pm. have a good day and I hope you enjoyed


	4. part iv

**part iv.** _a foolish man is sober and a foolish man is drunk and they clash and they see each other and in the end, well they both are just fools and alone; guilt is deep and guilt fuels sorrow but she must remember the yellow; a short and brief summary of love and watching the blossom of it all; a kiss means everything a kiss means all and this kiss killed; whole man, half man, not a man at all, he knew oh he knew, he knew it all;_

* * *

When the door shut behind her, Peeta didn't know what to do. _Well this is just great_. He wanted to see where she went, see what she was doing, wanted to just _talk_ to her because dammit, there was a lot going on and they had a lot they needed to talk about. But he figured she needed space. He knew that he probably needed space.

No, he didn't need space. He needed to talk to someone else.

He went out the front door and quickly found himself over at Haymitch's, knocking loudly until he let himself in. His house may have at one point looked as immaculate as their new one as it definitely reeked of seeing better days. Empty beer bottles, old clothes, and overall just mess littered the area. Peeta found Haymitch at his kitchen table, his head down and his one hand wrapped around a bottle.

"Haymitch," he called to the man but he didn't move. Already irritated, Peeta tried to keep his composure. "Haymitch, wake up," He said louder, until he shoved the man and he woke with a gasp and fell to the floor.

"What was that for, boy?" He asked, rubbing his back from the floor.

Peeta offered his hand to help him up, which Haymitch took while muttering. "For not waking up."

"Well I'm awake. Why are you here?"

_What a charming man_. Peeta wondered why he willingly seeked out this man's company. Well, and then he remembered. He looked at him. "Hi Haymitch. It's great to see you. Haven't seen you in a while, have you been well? Because I know I've been–"

"Yeah, yeah I get it," he said and waved his arm at the blond standing in front of him. He shook the bottle in front of him, finding it empty, and picked up a half full one from the ground. "Haven't seen you in a while Peeta, _fine_. I'm going to drink my hangover away, _fine._ How have you been?"

"Shitty."

The man that used to live in the Seam just laughed, did the action of giving a cheers to Peeta, and took a swig. "Join the club."

Peeta sat down across from the man, suddenly feeling everything from the night, the day, everything since he woke up in that bed. He ached, so much walking over the course of the day, and it threatened to take over.

He ached, like he ached since he woke up. It was why it took so long, why his door had been locked and the window shut for all that time to_her._ They wanted him recovered (recovered _enough_, at least. Not fully recovered, he didn't think that would truly exist) for his reunion with Katniss. He was told that and sure he was made known that he was to be fine with it, but it was hard to not see her. And it was bullshit that Haymitch never visited him, even if he told himself the drunk didn't care about him. (Call it foolish, but he needed the man to care about him. He craved it, like a little child, being denied it too much in his life, even from his own mother. The idea of someone being worried about him grabbed at him, and he was just waiting for the truth to come, that they didn't care, the grab to be let go of and him to go sprawling in the dirt.) It hurt, so he ached.

He wondered if he'd ever be fully healthy ever again.

(He knew though, he knew the answer. It was in the vitamins they made him consume every morning and night. It was in the food supplied by the hospital, the way that the nurses assured him _just wait until you get into your home, the food is to _die_ for – because, you know, people around the place knew a thing or two about things to die for. It was in the therapy they already began on him, assuring him that soon enough it'll be like nothing is different, that everything will work how it used to – how it __should_. The random headaches, the minute long fevers, they were less and less as the days went on, but they were there. Like a pinch of reality, a little dose of remembrance that all he was anymore was limbs strung together and working with a health that was determined by how much people liked him, that one wrong move makes the grenade go off and he'll be set up for a donation to stop it all.)

He sighed, and tried to get his mind back to the present, to why he looked for this man's company besides making the man feel guilty for not visiting him and himself feeling old issues of abandonment that he told himself he outgrew after he turned ten come blazing through him.

Haymitch beat him to the punch. "So why did you come here?" He took a long drink, and the question hung between the two of them. Peeta stayed silent, and Haymitch scowled. "You obviously wanted to say something, or do something. Otherwise you'd be tucked into your nice big bed with that girl you're in love with in your arms, sleeping. It's been a long day, can't this wait until tomorrow?"

Peeta ignored Haymitch's request. "Why'd you tell her that?" He asked Haymitch. "Why did you tell her it was a strategy?" His voice was hushed, as if just talking about her would summon her to them, as if she'd be there and he'd have to endure having her listen to this conversation.

Haymitch pinched the bridge of his nose. "You should be thanking me for that, boy."

"It's a lie, though!" His anger bristled. "Dammit Haymitch, I know that you didn't believe me at first but I thought you did at the end. It's not a lie, Haymitch. It's not an act, and you told her it was."

Peeta felt himself losing it. The day was getting to him, it was all getting to him, and all he wanted to do was yell at this drunk bastard. Haymitch though, stayed at a controlled tone. His scowl left, and his words were even calm. The only showing of any acknowledgement to what Peeta was saying was the one eyebrow quirked up to his hairline. "Well I seemed to make a real mess of things, didn't I? Why don't you just go and tell her how I'm a liar, how you really _are_ in love with her, and have always been?"

His anger was gone. Or at least his yelling was. _Tell her?_ He told the entire country already. He did that. It got written off to her as a lie, sure, but he already did. The thought of stealing back into the house, _their_ house, coming upon her, whispering in her ear to wake her up, telling her, _telling her_...

"Why so silent now, boy? The idea of telling her suddenly too much?"

Peeta slumped into a seat across from the old man and shooed the bottle offered to him. "Why did you tell her it was a strategy?" His voice was back down to the quiet it was when he first asked the question. He just wanted to know. He knew he was angry, bitter, selfish, and a fool. And he knew he couldn't just go and tell her now, after it all, that it wasn't just some desperate act so that they could live.

The man sighed, and for a bit Peeta almost believed he could see the man truly beyond the drunken stupor he tried to keep around himself and beyond the stubborn anger he wore as a protective gear like many from his old District. "I was just looking out for both of you. I knew you were being truthful. Hell, I suspected it before you even said anything to me about it. I think almost anyone would. The way you looked at her..." He sighed again, and then looked straight at Peeta. "You made a decision that most don't make the moment you told me you wanted to tell the world you were in love with that girl. You started yourself down a path no one else in your position ever tried to go down."

"And what path was that?"

"You're telling the truth. The awful, damning truth. And god, that was so _stupid_ of you, that's why I tried to stop you. To save you. But you _had_to, not only were, but you _are_ a fool, and a stubborn one at that. You needed to tell her, tell everyone, just in case it was your last chance. But it wasn't. You survived, and the girl did too. It's unheard of, I know you know that, and it was surprising enough that one of you would survive. but both? Two from the same District hadn't survived in years, not since they added the rule that there was to be one one or less survivors per District. The two of you weren't supposed to survive. But it didn't matter either way because that girl forgot about how a heart works. The idea of someone liking her baffles her."

"But I lo–"

"I know, kid. I know. You _love_ her. Want to give her the moon and want to give her all the woods to roam around in. I get it, I do."

A question bubbled up, before he could stop it. "Have you ever been in love before, Haymitch?"

The air between the two of them grew thick, and if he squinted, squinted hard and looked out of the corner of his eye, he could almost believe he was looking at the man that haymitch used to be, the boy the Capitol ripped from his home and threw to the wolves.

The man looked up from his dark curtain of hair and peered at the naive merchant boy in front of him. _The Capitol is going to destroy them both. Just like us all._

"I thought so. A long time ago." The kid nodded. "but it wasn't like your love, whatever it was. I don't think I ever was capable of what you feel. I don't know if anyone else could." He sighed, too many sighs, and took a deep gulp of his liquor. "Don't let them take that from you, boy."

Peeta was silent. He came over to Haymitch's house to yell at him, to demand answers, and he felt like crying at this point. "Alright," he said, nodding. "I won't." He thought about promising that he wouldn't, but he knew that would be foolish. He was in no position to promise something like that. He felt how already there was a bitter anger that snaked through him and burrowed into his heart every now and then. He couldn't make the promise that this place wouldn't take away his heart and its ability to love. It was hard enough to keep it all back in Twelve, amongst the underfed faces he saw through the windows and the meals of stale product and a mother who would yell and hit. The hitting let up as he started getting older (and bigger, learning to wrestle seemed to make both his brothers and mother step down more often), but the biting words were always there. He was able to keep his heart then, but here, would he?

He wasn't sure. And it scared the hell out of him.

"I was looking out for you both. She's not ready to hear that, to know that someone is in love with her that wasn't born loving her. She cares about you, I know that for sure. Maybe one day she'll be ready for the truth but not yet. You have a place in her, you do. That alone is no easy feat." Another nod, another sigh, another sip and eyebrows furrowed, eyes looking into the distance.

"Now get the fuck out of here, I need to get drunk and pass out." Haymitch said, gruffly, dismissing their conversation and downing the rest of the bottle in his hand. Peeta muttered a goodnight and made his way back across the street, his mind even more cluttered than it was before he went over.

* * *

She heard him come back into the house. Distantly, she noticed it. She was burrowed in that closet, in that guest room, and even the damn closet was too big. Everything was. She thought of selling each and every thing in this damn house and giving the money to the Seam back at home. Of returning with all the money to give to them, returning to her family. It was a nice thought, more beautiful than any of the ornate decorations surrounding her in the place, and she hated it. She hated how much it hurt because it could never, would never happen.

She couldn't sell everything. She couldn't get the money to the Seam. She couldn't return to the Seam.

She was in a prison, in a hell, and the thought of being able to at some point maybe call up Primrose and hear her voice again was the only thing she felt herself holding onto again.

Peeta came back home and she waited for footsteps up the stairs that never came. He was so damn..._confusing_. She didn't know how to deal with anything of the situation, and she didn't know how to deal with him. She went through it all in her head before. She wanted to hate him. The reason she was living and not Rue, it was him, him, him and his words. But no, it was the Capitol to hate, not him. So she couldn't hate him. But it'd be easier if she did.

She knew, she didn't know how much but she knew, she cared for him. And the thought of that scared her shitless.

She didn't _want_ to care about him. But she did. She had to. She considered him a friend at least, though the word felt weird, after their time in the Capitol. And now, well now, they're lovers for the cameras. But what about off cameras? They lived together. They were expected to sleep in the same bed, share private kisses, touch...

They were roommates. They were friends. They would kiss and be cute for the cameras. She repeated it all in her head to calm her breathing down.

She never kissed anyone ever, never had been kissed, and now she was expected to suck his face off whenever possible. She admitted to herself that it, well, it felt _nice_. And, yeah, alright, it was _fun_, sometimes even. And she hated that she saw it like that, and tried to not think of it like that. _It's not nice or fun, it's just something to do to make sure we stay alive._

She always lied to herself. She taught herself at a young age. But she knew, even as she said it to herself, how much of a lie it was.

Maybe it was just Peeta. Maybe he was a good kisser. She remembered hearing the girl gossip about the blond curled baker. She didn't keep an ear out ever for gossip, but his name came up frequent enough and her ears were trained almost it seemed to hear word of how the boy who saved her life was doing. She heard about many many girls' fantasies that starred that man. If even a quarter of them weren't lies, he was well experienced.

The idea burrowed a hot anger through her that she at first didn't understand. All she knew was that she wanted to go back in time to when she heard the different faceless _stupid_ girls talking about him, and she wanted to punch them. She realized a beat later that what she was feeling was jealousy, something that just friends-slash-roommates never felt.

She realized a beat after that that none of those gossiping girls would even be near him ever again. She smiled to herself at that, and tried to just ignore the jealousy. She'd deal with that in due time, she decided, and just at that point try to revel in the fact that she'd not have to deal with hearing any of what the people back in Twelve would say. She thought about what if Peeta really _did_ like her (beyond a strategy, if his life wasn't endanger, if hers wasn't, because that's all this was, strategy, strategy), if he started truly courting her back in Twelve. All of the gossip that'd surround them was almost a big enough thought to make Katniss go into a panic, but she calmed herself down.

_They're not around for us to have to listen to their judgement, or deal with their stares. We're in the Capitol. Everyone around us are sure to gossip about us, but they love it all. We're a story to them. We're a strategy to each other._

She tried to keep her mind off of home after that. Tried not to think of friends and family, of the woods and her bow still hidden within them, of that lake and that cabin, waiting for a dead father and a daughter that'd never again return.

It was all kind of like that, wasn't it? Like that abandoned lake, just left to wait for the rest of her life to come back to. She was sure that it was all like that, all of District Twelve, the Seam, the Hob, Greasy Sae and her mystery meat stews, Thom and his off-key whistling coming back from the mines, the coming and going of blooms in the meadow.

Her mother. Her sister.

Her father.

All waiting, and she'd never return.

She turned her back to the closed door of the guest room's closet that she huddled herself in, and closed her eyes shut as much as she could. She wouldn't sleep, she knew that. Not in a place like this, a mansion of nightmares. She wouldn't sleep, she _couldn't._ The idea of laying in a bed that big with no one in her arms, with no Prim.

A deep breath. Two of them. Back pressed against the wood of the door and eyes shut tighter. She let go of the thoughts of District Twelve, of families and friends that were still there amongst it all, and she only let her mind briefly meet the image of Peeta. Peeta, from the place that she used to call home. Peeta, the only person around that she still had the possibility to protect. Peeta, who she'd most likely fail. Peeta, whose entire survival (however malleable of a word it was to them now) depended mainly on Katniss; on mainly her ability to lock his interest with her mouth against his, on her ability to weave their two hearts together for a snooping camera and expectant country.

It would've been easier if it wasn't Peeta. If it wasn't Peeta, she wouldn't have a debt to the person already. She could be her greedy and selfish self, go home like she was offered, and not give a damn when she looked at the television screen and saw whoever it was with a new Capitol woman on his arm each week. If it wasn't Peeta, they wouldn't have come up with the strategy, and she wouldn't have to know how it felt to kiss someone, to have their hands run through her hair. She wouldn't know the feeling of someone else's eyelashes moving on her own cheek, of a smile she had to bite back and try to scowl away because in a place like where she is, it's not fair to be happy.

But it was Peeta. And she knew that the only reason she _could_ go through with it all, was _because_ it was Peeta. The idea scared her, how much it all really depended on her depending on him, and so she tried to not think about it further. She focused on her breathing, in out in out, and soon enough her mind had no thoughts in it.

Just the image of a sea of dandelions.

* * *

"Well, I believe I'm speaking for everyone when I say thank you to you, Peeta, for not speaking to Katniss beforehand so we could all watch and experience her falling in love with you!"

The crowd roared, showing their agreement. The two of them smiled. Peeta had to force it because it hurt every time he had to be in front of cameras, deal with everyone doting on how _in love_ they both were with each other. It hurt that much more when there were no more cameras and Katniss was cold again, and not at all who she had to project for cameras. She was the Katniss he truly loved, the Katniss he fell in love with, and he hated how she changed so 360 in front of the cameras, when he finally got the chance to kiss her. It was almost as if he was kissing someone else, _not_ Katniss, not the girl he fell in love with when he was five years old and not the girl he was still in love with.

It was hard to Katniss to smile because the interview had been a grueling one.  
It started with their entrance, and of course, their kiss. All the time waiting back stage, Katniss tried to disassociate herself from the boy that was holding her hand, rubbing circles on it with his thumb. She tried to take her mind from it, not pay attention to it, to the fact that it in fact was working on calming her down. And then Caesar Flickerman was calling them back on stage yet again.

They kissed, and her lips were closed tight. It was the physical manifestation of her, he decided. Of everything about her, and how she was. To him.

Closed. Closed off. She didn't let him inhale her.

He tried, he did, oh he tried. He didn't mean to, but he did it because he was a fool and he was in love with her and her lips were closed so tight that they didn't leave any room to fall into. He thought of the night before, of how he stood in the threshold of _their_ house after visiting Haymitch, and didn't move. He stood there, still, and couldn't hear a damn thing in the night. He knew that Katniss was upstairs, somewhere, but didn't know where. And after his conversation with Haymitch, he had no intention of finding out. He was afraid that he'd just end up spilling out the truth to her the moment he saw her grey eyes, and so he just heaved a breath from his lungs and sat on the couch in the living room.

Needless to say, the night was sleepless for the both of them, unfamiliar with their surroundings, and the need to not sleep. At the hospital, the rich was subdued by a bleached out white. At the hospital, morphling was connected to them, dripped slowly into their bloodstream to bring a sleep to them.

At the hospital, they were cut into, torn apart literally, and drugged so that it wouldn't haunt them at night.

But there was no morphling hook up to their beds in their house. And they weren't looking to become addicts or abusers, of any substance. The thought of a big cold bed and nightmares was too much for the both of them. And even though they've felt homesick before, even though before they had been scared and nervous about everything the Capitol was, that night felt like the first from home.

No, definitely no sleep.

The prep teams made sure to get rid of the bags under both of their eyes and any other sign of fatigue. The morning dragged as well. Katniss stayed in the closet and Peeta stayed on the couch until there was a knock on the door which he answered, almost being shoved out of the way by the prep teams.

The thought of breakfast came and went in his mind as they dragged him out to start the trek to their car that was parked outside of the village and Katniss made her way down the stairs to her own welcoming prep team.

"Oh honestly, Katniss, couldn't you have prepped _a bit_ for your prep team? It looks like Peeta threw you all around the house."

"Or the bed." Smirks and snickers.

"I wanted to give you more of a challenge," was all she responded, deadpanned, not even blushing at their implications of their comments and not rising to anger in defense. The thought of Katniss being in a state because of an equation that involved himself and a bed almost made Peeta start laughing. He had entertained that thought before, of course, lifetimes ago it seemed. An excuse along the lines of being a teenage boy would have to suffice. But the idea of that thought now, with everything the two of them had to go through, had to go through because he was a fool that couldn't keep his mouth shut, well, he knew that if he didn't laugh he'd cry so he tried to think of something else.

The different breads from the different districts. The different ingredients for each of them, and how to prep. How long the dough needed to sit to rise. The recipe.

They were both even more exhausted from the day by the time that they stood backstage. And they still hadn't talked to each other. Peeta wondered if there was something to say but nothing was right. _How was your night's sleep?_ Well, obviously shitty, and if she asked the same of him that'd be his response too. _Are you ready to go on stage?_ No. _Excited?_ No. _Are you ready to pretend to be in love with me because I needed to tell the world that I was in love with you before the possibility of my death? And yes, I really do love you and no it's not just a strategy to me._

He couldn't think up a hypothetical answer to that one.

Katniss tried to think of something to say. She couldn't, so she tried to keep her mind at the task at hand, and let herself think about the boy that was standing next to her, the boy that she tried to keep from her thoughts but was completely unsuccessful with. _Alright. Go out there, and make it not seem like you spent the night in a closet, hidden from this boy._ She looked at him from the corner of her eye. _Er. Man. Make them feel love between the two of you. If you don't..._

She looked at him again, and went to grab for his hand. It was easier backstage to, easier with the cameras so close, because when she reacted before her head caught up to what she was doing, when she grabbed for his hand just because the thought of failing and what that meant was too much, it was easy to quickly reason that there were cameras, there were to be lovers, strategy, a show.

He shot a sad smile at her, so quick that she wasn't sure if she just imagined it or not.

_I won't fail him. I can't._ She didn't allow herself to think of possible 'if I don't do what I have to' scenarios during her mental psyche up. And soon enough they were on the stage.

* * *

The audience chanted "Kiss her! Kiss her!" before Katniss even could focus on any faces. She felt her hand in his, his in hers, and the words _Kiss her, kiss her_ ran through her.

She turned and looked at him, and for a second they were silent and still. Katniss tried to figure out what he was trying to tell her in the look, because it was obvious he was trying to tell her _something_, but soon she felt his hand swoop to her lower back and pull her close to him. And his hands, and his lips, and her eyes closed.

_Kiss her, kiss her_ was still being chanted, and it kept her locked to the ground, to the moment, and as much as she wanted to and didn't want to lose herself in his kisses whenever they came around, it didn't let her.

Even she could feel herself closed off from it all, could feel how cold – even when she was meant to be warm and loving – she was. Even she could feel the slightest detection of let down from Peeta after they broke apart, how their foreheads stayed together, and he took a big long sigh.

It all had already been taxing on the two of them. Katniss knew a big problem in it (the only) was her. She argued with herself, sure, about how it'd be easier if it wasn't Peeta because she'd not have a debt to guilt her into it all, but she never thought about the fact of how much easier it'd be for Peeta if it wasn't _Katniss_. If she didn't volunteer, and he confessed his love for whoever ended up getting Reaped. Perhaps a beautiful merchant girl, all smiling and porcelain, ready to be shaped in velvet and silk. She'd be good at this, whoever she was. She'd be good at kissing.

She'd be good at loving Peeta Mellark.

But he was stuck with her. She opened her eyes with their foreheads touching, and quickly moved in to peck him on the mouth once more. She didn't try and excuse that. That wasn't for show. It was an apology for her being her, all rough edges and Seam features, dark against where it was expected to be light. It was an apology for being so icy, and a promise to try more, try harder and better, and that maybe being around him and being like that wouldn't feel like a chore. Maybe.

Maybe.

It was a greeting from Caesar, _Long time no see lovebirds_, and then a launch into talking. Peeta took over with the words, Katniss held his hand in both of his, leaned into his other arm that draped around her, and watched him. She added in a couple words. It was small talk. There was a segment of it, the main segment, that was a clip show.

"We gathered up some never before seen footage for you all," Caesar announced, and the two of them both tried not to stiffen in their seats. "I watched it earlier, and I swear I was fighting tears. The road to love is a beautiful one, and these two are prime examples of it."

A projector came on and the light went down, and for the next two hours, clips of Peeta and Katniss played. It started with the Reaping; it showed Peeta being picked Katniss volunteering with a voice-over talking about how no one in Distrcit Twelve had ever volunteered. A fuzzy recording of two people, the two of them, on a couch, Katniss in Peeta's arms. Katniss remembered that moment, remembered crying because Peeta's eyes looked so much like her sister's.

She remembered the next day, when she was able to see them as blue, just blue, and she joked with him. Like they were friends.

They _were_ friends, right? It was all really confusing with what names to put on whatever it was between Katniss and Peeta, on camera or off. It always had been, she realized, from the beginnings of their young friendship that bloomed in recess and had to stop because of the prejudices of Seam and Merchants. It was difficult to name when he saved her, and she couldn't even thank him, and she depended on him staying safe from Reapings to being safe too. And it had only gotten more difficult.

A clip of the two of them walking close, of Katniss bumping into him with a smile, and a shy smile from him in return. Finnick's voice came out,_what is Peeta to you?_ Katniss sat horrified at that, and she could feel Peeta's questioning gaze upon her. It showed her sitting with Peeta and Rue at lunch and Rue, damn, that hurt and she bit back tears as Finnick's voice came again. Peeta on the screen watched Katniss as she laughed with the little girl with a look that she had seen before she thought, seen her father give her mother once upon a time, and _The question I guess then, is: What are you to Peeta?_

She hated that they put in parts of that conversation into it. As if she needed another reminder that the President heard their talk, all of their talks. He already told her through the dandelions. Now she had to deal with Peeta knowing that her and Finnick discussed _him_.

More images of the two of them during their tests. Secret smiles passed to each other and laughs mixing together and every now and then one of them would look at the other when the other wasn't paying attention. They both did it, just like in school in a lifetime they didn't live in anymore.

It painted quite the picture of two people in love.

Katniss knew that during the tests, she didn't let anyone through but Peeta (_and Rue, oh god, Rue_). The amount of footage therefore that they had almost disturbed her. It was like they were some cutesy couple before the interview night. Katniss didn't realize that she was digging her fingernails into Peeta's hand as they watched until he started to run a finger up and down her forearm. She tried to relax and smile as they continued to watch.

It was such a happy event, watching with the entire country as she fell in love with him. That's what they said. That's what she had to do, had to be. Happy and in love and bubbly, bubbly, bubbly.

She had to be not her.

And then the clips got to the interview night. Of the two of them sitting backstage with nerves. Of Katniss' slip up, alluding to some unfinished business. And their exchange before Peeta went onstage. Grasping fingers, smiles, and the entire crowd _awww_ed in memory of that quiet intimacy between the two lovers.

Peeta's interview. _I can't imagine the burden it'd be for a stranger to be in love with a girl that volunteered to donate from District Twelve._Katniss' face, Katniss' damn face full of shock and surprise, her eyes grey and alive with something, something, (damn, she still wasn't sure what it was, but knew it shouldn't be there, cursed it for existing).

Katniss' voice came through again. _If I volunteered, I'd finally get to talk to you again._

Her smile stayed still, too still, and her fingernails were driven into Peeta's hand again. Dammit, no, no, don't give them this, don't give them everything. She rather the Katniss and Peeta in the spotlight be of a lovers that was entirely of the creation of the Capitol. But here they were, with pieces of who they really are, of _what_ they really are, and it felt suffocating.

She smiled more.

As she saw herself running down the hospital hallways, she knew this part would be in the clip show. Of _course_ it would be. Katniss Everdeen's last minute spontaneous visit to Peeta Mellark's room, to see him one last time in case one of them didn't survive. Their soft, hesitant touches. Their words. Their kiss.

It was unnerving, watching her in a kiss with the boy right next to her on a stage in front of an entire audience. Although everyone was locked on the screen, she knew a camera was on the two of them the entire time, she knew they were building up stock videos of them two together for future clips. She bit back the blush and the tears and the bile that all seemed to mix in her and want to be rid of in her body, and kept her smile. She looked away with a sheepish smile, and Peeta just smiled at her and kissed her forehead, seemingly unfazed at it all.

She was jealous of that, of how easly he was taking it all.

(Of course in reality, he wasn't taking it easy at all. It was so painful to watch this because whoever did the editing did too good of a job. They took their interactions, their _real_ interactions, none of this _it's a strategy_ bullshit, and spun a love story out of it. Exactly what he wanted.

Exactly what he didn't have.

He had the mixture of the tears and bile too, just like Katniss, but not for the same reasons. Her privacy was invaded, she felt. His was too. They took his dreams, the ones he held closest to himself, and made it into a stupid clip special for him to watch in a suit as he held on - and was held by - the lady of his every hour in a stunning gold dress that showed too much leg because damn, he was distracted dispite everything happening.)

Her words echoed throughout the entire place, _You come back to me_, as she was taken away from him. The image of him asleep, and her visiting him. Holding his hand. _You're going to have to wake up soon, Peeta_. They edited out the tidbit of Snow. _I can't do this alone. You just need to wake up. You come back to me._

_You come back to me._ A kiss on the forehead.

And then just yesterday was also in it as well. Their reunion kiss, and how both of their eyes were swimming. The crowd cheering, mixing with the current day's crowd cheering. Their silhouettes on their front porch as Effie greeted them into their new home, the lights pouring out upon the sea of dandelions, and then the door closing. The screen faded.

Their smiles didn't. Their smiles _couldn't._ The show must go on, and on.

* * *

In the car, she let go of his hand.

(Of course she let go of his hand.)

"Fuck, my mouth hurts from smiling so much," she muttered, rubbing her jaw. He looked at her, then looked away, not wanting to look at her at that moment. It hurt for her to smile so much, to pretend to be happy with _him._ Damn, he hated feeling like a wounded fucking puppy over this all but he couldn't help it, especially with offhanded comments like that one.

And maybe she didn't mean it like that (she didn't; she was tired of the Capitol, much too early for it but she was. It wasn't him. He was a breath of fresh air during it all, but she was still tired). Maybe she didn't mean she was tired of him, but it sure felt like it. And he shouldn't take it personally, shouldn't, but he did, he did.

Katniss' mind went to something Caesar said to Peeta during their interview after the clip show. Something about therapy that Peeta had to go into. She was confused. Therapy? She knew that Annie was going to be sent into therapy, you know, because she was mad afterall. But Peeta wasn't given any defining status on his mental state, that she knew of at least. He was sane, he had to be, because damn he was the only thing that kept her sane (only not really, she didn't feel sane at all. But the moments she did, well, it was Peeta that brought her back from the edge of the cliff).

"What did Caesar mean?" She asked him quietly. "About therapy."

He was quiet then too. _Great._ He didn't bring it up because he didn't want to talk about it. Because he knew that talking about it, talking to her about it, would strike him down even further on the subconscious list of people and how they are desirable to her (to be honest, he was pretty sure this list didn't exist at all to her. And if it did, he wouldn't be anywhere near it. But this was too much, and he felt the ability to ever be on it was taken away by this. And he hated it.)

"Uhm," He started off, this boy with words for any situation suddenly could find none. "It's physical therapy."

"Physical therapy?" She repeated.

He nodded. "For my leg." A beat, a pause, a sigh. "Or lack."

She turned to him, her eyes searching his. "_What?_"

"I uhm." He hated this. So instead, he just lifted his left pant leg up slightly, and she saw metal. His voice was quiet, a whisper, and she wanted to cry. "There was a complication during my donation. A nicked vein, or muscle, or something. I don't know. I just know that I was losing blood, and fast, and that they _reacted_. The only way to save me from it was amputating. So uh, I'm... kind of down one leg. I've been working in therapy and relearning walking and everything, but it's pretty tiring. And uh, so yeah. They saved me. Which they never do. But they did, for_me_..." He looked at her quickly and looked away as he put his pant leg down, her eyes still upon it. "For us."

He understood that part. The doctors never tried to save the Reaped when their vitals dropped during donation. And yet, they did for him. And he understood, not fully of course, no, but he understood that they did for him. They went against that usual code of conduct, and saved him._And_ gave him a prosthetic, which of course was no Reaped limb for him (he couldn't even imagine that though, using the leg of some dead person that was alive and around him just days before. He'd take metal over flesh, any day), but still, they gave him a prosthetic. It was more than they ever did for any other Reaped.

And it scared him. And her too. Because she understood it a bit more. How Snow was ensuring their team, and ensuring her to be in his debt.

And she felt horrified. He lost his _leg_, and she didn't even know. "What did they take from you?" She asked him, her voice as low as him.

He sighed, frustrated and done with the day. "I don't know, Katniss. They don't ever tell us what we donate."

"I want to know what the hell they took that was so important that they took your leg too."

"Well I'm sorry but _I don't know_. The only people that know are the doctors. Or whatever. Can we not talk about it anymore? I'm tired."

She couldn't stop thinking about it though. Her mind was spinning. She was brought out of her wheeling misery when he put his hand atop hers. "I'm fine. I'll be fine" (comforting her when he was the one that should be seeking comfort, she noted that, and she wasn't surprised at how selfish it was of her). His hand was warm, more warm than she ever knew a hand could feel without being feverish but it felt good. And alive. Damn, he was alive and it was like his whole body wanted her to know.

She squeezed his hand, and tried to smile. She nodded and turned her hand, palm against palm, and laced their fingers.

And she was holding his hand again. He didn't know what was worse. Her holding it because of the cameras, or pity.

* * *

He made her take the master bedroom, him taking the guest bedroom and the two of them actually laid in beds that evening. She couldn't turn her mind off. When they got to the house, it went back to how it had become between the two of them: hedging around each other and silence.

She still couldn't sleep.

She pictured the dead boy with the missing legs in the morgue. _Damn, he had blue eyes and blond hair too_. She thought of Peeta, Peeta as she just saw him a couple of minutes ago, Peeta who was _alive_. Blond dead boy, the only difference was that Peeta had one more leg than him, and was still alive. Him and Katniss both still were.  
It didn't matter. She knew that if she fell asleep (she did, for an hour or two, woke up in a terror and refused to fall back asleep) what her nightmares would include.

(Peeta and his one leg, laying under the cold flickering lights of the morgue. Dead, but his eyes opened and staring at Katniss as she stared at him, and she knew, she could just hear what they were screaming "_your fault, you did this to me, you killed me, destroyed my life–_")

She sunk into the too large bed, weighted by guilt, and she knew for certain she truly was the worst thing to happen to Peeta Mellark.

* * *

It was like dreaming and waking up, he decided.

Being awake was in the house.

He decided, rather quickly, that the dream was much prettier, much easier, much better. Even if in the dream, there were cameras, and she was not truly herself, she was still there, and smiling, and holding his hand. It hurt that much more when the dream was done, when they got back to the house and back to the silence adn evading each other.

He knew also he wouldn't sleep. He laid in bed, freshly showered, and the night terrors that he knew he'd have came to his mind. His mother was in front of him, and she was laughing. _You stupid fool, you stupid, stupid fool. You're not even good enough for that Seam trash_.

He wanted to tell her that she wasn't Seam trash, but he was pretty sure he wasn't strong enough to stick up against his mother. In his nightmares she was even taller, bigger, and all around her and them was darkness. Nothing to save him from her, nothing for him to hide behind.

_And she never wanted you. You pined like a horny teenager after that stupid Seam trash and she never wanted you. And now you're not even a whole man! She'll never want you. She'll never love you. You truly love her?_ More echoing laughter, and he felt as if it made him bleed. _Tell her, tell her! Tell her you love her. Watch the disgust on her face. Watch her give up the farce and leave you on your own._

_You have no one, Peeta Mellark. Not even yourself._

* * *

**a/n:** I meant to update earlier, but this was a bit harder of a chapter. Everything is still very Katniss/Peeta centric, but updates will be expanding to others come the next update. Next update will have the housewelcoming party, as well as really getting this show on the road. Thank you for everyone that's been reviewing. Gosh, it means so much! Thanks to Erin jennibrolawrence19 because I love you, kismet4891 who is so incredibly nice and makes me jump for joy because god I love your writing, and Lgwater27 and DandelionOnFire for the constant reviews. And of course everyone that reviews. I try to reply to all of them, but just know that they all mean a whole lot. Writing this is a lot of work at times, and taxing, but I love it. And it's great to hear feedback from it. And I'm happy that a good amount of you are enjoying the characterization I have of Peeta. This update certainly added to the bitter side of him that you guys picked up on. I'll try to update as soon as possible, but real life is incredibly stressful and everything right now, so I'm not sure when the next will be out. Thanks, and hopefully you enjoyed. Have a good day


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